Hermann Blau

Who was Hermann Blau?

Hermann Blau was a German engineer and chemist, and inventor of Blau gas.

Blau, a student of the Nobel Prize winning chemist Adolf von Baeyer was originally a pharmacist but devoted himself in later life entirely to chemistry. His attempts to separate gas mixtures by physical means eventually led to the great invention of his life, a transportable liquid lighting gas from the distillation of gases.

It was the manufacturer Ludwig August Riedinger who inspired the inventor to start his first production facility, the Blaugas factory in 1903 in Augsburg at the Auer roads. The Augsburg-based company operated later on with Riedinger under the name the German Blau gas company which controlled factories in Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Saint Petersburg, the United States, Canada and Cuba.

Blau gas has a rather water-like color. It was stored in steel cylinders for shipment and had the advantages that it possessed the highest specific energy from all artificial produced gases and unlike coal gas it was free from carbon monoxide. Its main use was for lighting purposes especially in places where coal gas was not available. Blau gas factories were operated in Denmark and Holland for the supply of lighthouses.