Georges Claude

Georges Claude , born with Paris the September 24th 1870 and dead the May 23rd 1960, is a Physicien and Chimiste French.

Georges Claude is an industrial inventor and remarkable expert by the extent and the diversity of his work. Chemist of formation, former student of the University of industrial physics and chemistry of the town of Paris, it begins his career of technician with his work on the dissolution of acetylene in the acetone, discovered which leads to the industrial use of this gas. Independently of Carl von Linde, it develops in 1902 an industrial process of liquefaction of the air. The patents which it takes on this occasion are at the origin of the company Liquid air. He recommends in 1910, but in vain, the use of liquid oxygen in Sidérurgie. This process will be adopted only after the Second world war.

Liquefaction of the air

Claude imagines a process of liquefaction of the air which alméliore the output of that imagined by Linde and where the work provided by the adiabatic pressure drop of the air after its compression is used in the compressor. The cooling which accompanies it (Effet Joule-Thomson) is made profitable in an exchanger of heat which cools the air on the outlet side of the compressor. Claude thus carries out separation by split distillation of the Oxygène, of the Azote, the Argon.

He develops (1917) a process high pressure (1000 atmospheres -550°C) improving the Haber-Bosch process of synthesis of the Ammoniac. He uses the tube with the Néon as fluorescent source of light. With Boucherot, it builds a turbine using the thermal energy of the seas, i.e. the variation in temperature between the surface and deep layers (1930). The cold necessary to the industrial liquefaction of the air is obtained by relaxation by using the phenomenon of Joule-Thomson. The fall in temperature caused by the relaxation is proportional to the difference between the pressures initial and final. The energy spent at the time of compression is proportional to the logarithm of the report/ratio of the pressures, which means that the expenditure is the same one to compress a gas mass from 1 to 10 atmospheres or 10 to 100; in the first case, the fall in temperature after the relaxation is ten times weaker than in the second. Practically, the air is vacuum-cleaned, removed of its carbonic gas and its moisture, compressed towards 200 atmospheres, cooled in an exchanger, then slackened up to 25 atmospheres. A series of compressions and relaxations lead to liquefaction. In the majority of the factories, the liquid air is immediately subjected to a split distillation which separates oxygen, nitrogen and rare gases. The industrial facilities are important and it is not rare to see treating several hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of air per hour.

Other work

Continuing its work on the rare gases, that it obtained by distillation of the liquid air, Claude makes profitable the light output which accompanies the passage by the electric shock in a gas-tube: the development of fluorescent coatings the conduit thus, in 1910, with the realization of the lighting to neon, initially used in the neon signs. He also discovers, in 1913, with Arsène d' Arsonval, the explosive properties of the liquid air, which will be used during the First World War (mines with the liquid air and the Noir of smoke), and a process of synthesis of the Ammoniac under high pressure.

Claude is worried also problems of the energy production and, starting from 1926, it studies and tries out a method of production of the electricity based on the difference in temperature between surface (hot source) and the bottom (cold source) of the hot seas (marethermic energy). In 1933, learning the lessons from the made demonstration Cuba in 1930 has, and in order to carry out a first industrial experiment, Claude buys on his own sums of money the ship “Tunisia”, a cargo liner of 10.000 tons.

Its attitude collaborationnist the conduit with being judged the shortly after the war and excluded from the Academy of Science, where he had been elected in 1924. Condemned to the perpetual reclusion in 1945, it is released from prison in 1950 and is devoted then to research on the energy utilization of the seas.

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