The Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) plant system from Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies has started operation at -23 degrees Celsius.

Now, the participating Finnish research institute VTT in Espoo is operating the hydrogen release plant and testing the quality of the re-released hydrogen over a minimum period of six months. The released hydrogen is planned to fulfill very strict purity demands in order to be applicable with fuel cell vehicles. 

The EU project HySTOC stands for "Hydrogen Supply and Transportation using liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers". The aim of the project is to establish and test an efficient hydrogen value chain in Finland, from production (Kokkola site, partner company Oy Woikoski AB) to use in the mobility sector via a hydrogen filling station, in order to facilitate international learning. The proprietary LOHC technology of the German Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies GmbH and its plant systems based on it are the linking component. By connecting the hydrogen to the Erlangen-based company's liquid carrier material, it can be easily and safely transported to any customer using conventional logistics for liquid fuels at ambient conditions and released from the carrier there.

With the Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) of the project partner HyGear, the hydrogen released from the LOHC is purified to hydrogen fuel standards, for refueling cars or trucks with fuel cell engines. The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the German Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Chair of Chemical Reactor Technology) are the scientific research partners in HySTOC.

Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies' StorageBox, shipped in March 2020, has now been successfully commissioned at the Woikoski’s hydrogen production site in Kokkola – despite the local -23 degrees Celsius. The StorageBox in the project can store around 22 kg of hydrogen per day, bound to approximately 480 liters of the carrier medium. The ReleaseBox corresponding to the volume, which was delivered in November 2020 to VTT’s Bioruukki test facilities in Espoo, also went into operation. Hence, a central phase in the project has now started: The ReleaseBox will be operated in Espoo over 2,000 hours and the quality of the released hydrogen will be scientifically tested. This is because the purity of the hydrogen according to ISO 14687:2-2019 must be ensured for use in fuel cells. Additionally, VTT will study the effect of certain selected impurities in a 1 kW PEM FC system (Proton-Exchange Membrane fuel cell) at representative automotive conditions at steady state and cyclic operation.

VTT finalized a full life cycle and techno-economic assessment of this technology last year and found out that this can be both environmentally and economically sustainable compared to pressurized or liquid hydrogen. If everything goes as planned, within six months, Woikoski’s PEMFC vehicle will be fueled with the hydrogen from the ReleaseBox.