A Norwegian Engineer Invented the Aerosol Can in 1926
The aerosol can was invented by Erik Rotheim, a Norwegian engineer who in 1926 filed a Norwegian patent on a pressurised can with valve, nozzle and propellant. It was granted in 1929. His invention failed commercially: the mass-market aerosol was born in the United States during the Second World War, with Goodhue and Sullivan's bug bomb.
Key dates, read as today's decisions
The history of the aerosol fits into a single century. The dates come from the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, the US National Agricultural Library and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, each linked in its section.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1926 | Rotheim applies for the patent in Norway |
| 1929 | Norway grants patent number 46613 |
| 1931 | The United States grants patent 1800156 |
| 1933 | First production, at Alf Bjercke's factory in Oslo |
| 1939 | The company making the cans goes bankrupt |
| 1940s | Goodhue and Sullivan create the bug bomb |
| 1974 | Molina and Rowland warn that CFCs damage the ozone layer |
| 1987 | The Montreal Protocol is signed |
For a brand, the table reads differently: almost every date matches a part you choose today when you order an aerosol. The patent sets the principle (product, propellant and valve), the 1939 bankruptcy is a reminder that the can is a cost, the bug bomb opened the category that biocide rules now govern, and CFCs explain why the propellant is also chosen for its impact. The sections below turn each date into a decision.
Rotheim's three causes of failure, turned into checks
Rotheim set the principle every aerosol still uses: a product and a propellant gas sealed under pressure, released as a spray when a valve opens. According to the Norsk Teknisk Museum's record, his Norwegian patent dates from 1929 and the US one from 1931.
The business did not work. The museum gives three reasons: making the containers was too expensive, the nozzles clogged and the propellant he chose, dimethyl ether (DME), was costly and dangerous. Rotheim died in 1938 and the company producing the cans went bankrupt the following year.
DME did not disappear. Today it is one of the propellants aerosols are made with, alongside LPG and CO₂, in cans and valves that did not exist in the 1930s.
Each cause is now a check before you approve your aerosol:
- Against the expensive container, choose a standard can rather than a custom format. Ilerspray works with aluminium from 50 to 600 ml and tinplate from 100 to 750 ml, with any 1-inch valve.
- Against the clogging nozzle, spray the samples until a can is empty and check that the spray does not change or block at the end.
- Against the costly, dangerous propellant, ask why that gas is proposed for your formula. LPG and DME are flammable, which shows on the label, in the warehouse and in transport; CO₂ is not, but its pressure falls as the can empties.
The bug bomb, and what an insecticide under your brand needs today
The aerosol found its first mass use in the Second World War. Lyle Goodhue and William N. Sullivan, researchers at the US Department of Agriculture, created the bug bomb, a portable container that sprayed insecticide with a liquefied gas.
According to the US National Agricultural Library, which holds Sullivan's papers, the invention helped reduce casualties from mosquito-borne diseases in the Pacific. His studies later became the basis of the World Health Organization's standards for disinsecting aircraft.
After the war, the format moved from military to household use in the United States, and from there to the rest of the world.
That origin still shapes the category. An insecticide aerosol is now a biocide: before it is sold in the European Union it needs authorisation under Regulation (EU) 528/2012, starting from an active substance approved for insecticides, product type 18. If your range includes one, check first that the active substance the manufacturer proposes has that approval, then decide who will hold the authorisation.
Why CFCs were dropped, and which propellant to choose today
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the propellant of many aerosols for decades. In 1974, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland published in Nature that these very stable gases could reach the ozone layer and destroy it. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recalled it when it awarded them the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Paul Crutzen, noting that CFCs were used in spray bottles, refrigerators and plastic foams.
That work led to the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987 under the auspices of the United Nations to phase out the gases that destroy ozone. Aerosols switched propellants: hydrocarbons such as LPG, DME and compressed gases such as CO₂.
That gives today's rule. If you need a non-flammable aerosol, ask about CO₂ and accept that the spray loses strength as the can empties. If you need a steady spray to the very end, LPG or DME, knowing the product will be flammable.
Almost a century later, Rotheim's principle is intact and everything else has changed: the propellant, the valve and the can. To decide those three parts, the first step is yours and fits on one sheet: which product you want, in which format and in what volumes. Every aerosol contract manufacturing job at Ilerspray starts from that sheet, and from it the lab proposes the gas, the valve and the can.
