BUFFALO, N.Y. — ​The technology we use every day is enabled by what is made at Linde. Never heard of it? Well, the global gas company has a campus in Tonawanda.

Josh Leonard is a welding engineer. He is working on a new collaborative robot.

"Within a minute I can program this weld here," he said.

This robot is unique because it has sensors so people can work next to it. It’s also significantly cheaper. He is developing a welding package. Once it hits the market, the options for its use are endless. 

But, Linde’s roots go back to Germany in the early to mid- 1800s. That's when Carl Von Linde began separating air. In the early 1900s, its first North American operation opened in Buffalo on Chandler Street. Now, the facility is off Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda. The focus across the 105 acre site is innovation, engineering and development. 

You’ve already used their technology today.

"For example, when you wake up in the morning and you hit the alarm clock or the cell phone to silence it, the semi-conductor chips use our gases," Terry Bourgeois, the site director said.

That bag of potato chips you packed for lunch, for example, stays crunchy because of Linde.

"The gases in potato chips, also used in a lot of other foods to preserve them, those inner gases which are our products," Bourgeois said. 

In your bathroom, car, even what gets us into space, is made possible by the men and women here.

It all starts by liquefying air in a series of compressions and cooling. Then, in a process called "Fractional Distillation," oxygen and nitrogen are separated.

"And it's boiling at - 325F," Joan Geary, senior program development manager, said about liquid nitrogen. 

In a balloon is air. When the bottle it’s in hits the liquid nitrogen, it starts to liquefy.

"It's actually condensing at 700 times," Geary explained.

Liquid air, in part, is used to power space shuttles. Liquid nitrogen is used to flash freeze items, like those freshly frozen veggies at your grocery store.

The innovation is endless as the world around us changes. Folks like Leonard are making sure human kind can keep up.