Dubbed Enhance, the project will see Air Liquide retrofit one of its hydrogen production units in the Belgian port to use renewable ammonia as a feedstock instead of natural gas. It also plans to build a hydrogen liquefier.
According to H2 Intelligence, Air Liquide operates a 170-tonne-per-day grey hydrogen plant in the port which currently supplies BASF.
Hoped to support both imports and the decarbonisation of chemicals, refining and mobility sectors, the company says by replacing natural gas with ammonia, it could reduce over 300,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
The company has revealed few technical details on how it will retrofit the unit or how the ammonia will be converted to hydrogen. However, steam methane reformers (SMR) can be used to crack hydrogen from ammonia.
In a hybrid ammonia cracker-SMR system, ammonia can be cracked first with the resulting hydrogen being purified or further processed. Alternatively, ammonia can be reformed directly.
H2 View has contacted Air Liquide for confirmation.
Armelle Levieux, Member of Air Liquide’s Executive Committee, said, “The combination of ammonia cracking and hydrogen liquefaction technologies offers an additional solution to support the growth of the global hydrogen market.”
The company said Enhance will build off its ammonia cracking pilot plant in the Port of Antwerp.
Read more: Air Liquide to construct industrial-scale ammonia cracking plant at Port of Antwerp
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