Finland’s first manufacturer of industrial gases

Did you know that the Finnish family-owned company Woikoski Oy is the first manufacturer of industrial gases in Finland?

In 1912, Tirva Fabriks Aktiebolag – Tirva Factories Ltd – established an acetylene factory near Helsinki. At the same time, a chemical factory was planned in Tirva under Bertil Palmberg, which was completed in 1913, producing stearin and tallow for the candle and soap industries. The hydrogen needed for the hydrogenation of fats was produced by water electrolysis, as is still the case today at Woikoski’s hydrogen plant in Kokkola. Oxygen was produced as a by-product of the process. Around this time, gas welding became more common and oxygen was sold for use by welders.

Previously, gases had been imported, and Woikoski, then known as Tirva Factories, became Finland’s first producer of industrial gases, producing hydrogen, oxygen and acetylene.

The chemical factories were moved to Voikoski in Tirva and by 1918 they were almost completed, but it took time to repair the war damage and production started in 1920, when the company’s own power plant was completed.

The factory started with a familiar production line from Tirva, the manufacture of hydrogen and oxygen gases and the hydrogenation of fats, which was abandoned in the late 1920s and gases became the main article of the Tirva factories. Domestic, hydro-generated gas quickly became in demand as gas use multiplied in the 1920s. Among other things, the metal industry and even rural blacksmiths used gas for welding.