Iwatani Corporation develops technology to handle liquid hydrogen
May 13, 2022
Tokyo [Japan], May 13 : HySTRA, a consortium of several Japanese companies, is working on a pilot hydrogen supply chain demonstration project in Australia and Japan that started in 2021.
Established in 2016, HySTRA focuses on lignite coal buried as an unused resource in Australia and develops the technology.
Several companies are responsible for their specialized field and Iwatani Corporation is one of them is responsible for the basic operation and management of cargo handling operation.
Lignite coal, low-grade coal, includes high water content and impurities. Because of the low calorific value for heaviness, it can spontaneously combust when it is exposed to air.
So it has a defect which is unsuitable for transportation and storage. However, HySTRA has succeeded in producing a large amount of hydrogen at a low cost by making full use of technology.
"In Australia, I have heard that there was no handling technology for liquid hydrogen, and I think we have succeeded in educating people about this technology. In addition, the state government seems to be cooperating with us in the utilization of this resource. The lignite hydrogen in our project will be used as a green hydrogen energy source and we understand that it has been received very favourably," said Semba Toshiaki, Iwatani Corporation.
HySTRA developed the liquid hydrogen carrier "Suisofrontier," equipped with a cryogenic pressure storage cargo containment system that maintains the temperature of -253°C.
So it can transport large volumes of hydrogen efficiently and safely.
"The hydrogen which was produced in Australia connected to Japan. So the production of various hydrogen, the production of liquid hydrogen overseas, its transportation in large quantities by dedicated carrier, and the loading and handling operation has been completed. In this case, it was a demonstration of transportation and cargo handling technology on a large ship. In the actual commercial scale, we need a receiving base of a scale 10 to 20 times larger than this. We understand that we have taken a very important process that the technology will be much larger than what was originally available in Japan in terms of flow rate or in small scale, and we will further scale it up to a size that will actually be used in the commercial business. We believe it is very important to build a business that will produce revenue," said Semba Toshiaki, Iwatani Corporation.
HySTRA is aiming for a "hydrogen society" in which hydrogen is used as commonly as oil and natural gas. It will contribute to realize a green society.
