【Ten Years of Great Progress in Chemical Technology】031-2022: China’s first industrial-scale domestically produced liquid hydrogen plant was successfully commissioned

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In December 2022, Zhongke Fuhai’s first domestically produced 1.5TPD hydrogen liquefaction unit, featuring independent intellectual property rights, was successfully commissioned in Fuyang, Anhui, and liquid hydrogen was produced successfully. The purity of the product reached 99.9999%, with both the production volume and purity meeting the design specifications. This project is the first domestically produced, civilian-use industrial application device with a production license developed with the involvement of Zhongke Fuhai; it aims to reduce the costs associated with hydrogen storage and transportation, enhance the capacity for hydrogen supply, and address the issues related to the high costs of transporting hydrogen over long distances. It is understood that the 1.5TPD hydrogen liquefaction unit of Zhongke Fuhai uses liquid nitrogen for pre-cooling, as well as a helium refrigeration cycle consisting of two-stage helium gas-bearing turbine expanders to achieve cooling; hydrogen is then cooled step by step to low temperatures before being throttled to produce liquid hydrogen. The core components of this system include a high-speed gas-bearing turbine expander, a low-leakage plate-fin heat exchanger, a high-efficiency screw compressor, a precision oil filtration system, and a control system. The efficiency of the turbine in this set of equipment is over 75%, and the core components have been domestically produced. The 1.5TPD hydrogen liquefaction unit operated this time was independently designed and developed starting in 2018; by the end of 2019, the core equipment was processed and manufactured at Zhongshan Equipment Company of China Science and Fortune Sea, with the main body of the hydrogen liquefaction cryogenic tank being integrated there ； Liquid hydrogen products were produced in December 2022. Liquid hydrogen is an excellent method for storing hydrogen. In terms of energy storage density, it is 27 times greater than that of compressed air storage, and 7.4 times greater than that of compressed hydrogen storage. Liquid hydrogen storage for hydrogen has been applied in various **fields and breakthroughs have been achieved. In terms of production capacity, globally there are currently dozens of liquid hydrogen plants, with a total capacity of around 486 tons per day. Among them, the United States has a liquid hydrogen production capacity of about 326 tons per day, Canada about 81 tons per day, Europe about 26 tons per day, Japan 45.6 tons per day, South America 2.5 tons per day, while China’s production capacity is around 5 tons per day. In terms of application areas, the use of liquid hydrogen for civilian purposes has seen rapid development abroad. It was in the European and American civilian markets that liquid hydrogen first became widely adopted. Currently, one-third of hydrogen refueling stations in the United States use liquid hydrogen for storage; liquid hydrogen plays a dominant role in this sector. Of this amount, 33.5% is used in the petrochemical industry, 37.8% in industries such as electronics and metallurgy, around 10% is used in hydrogen refueling stations for fuel cell vehicles, and only 18.6% is utilized in aerospace and scientific research applications. In our country, liquid hydrogen is currently mainly used in the aerospace sector, and there is a trend toward its gradual adoption in civilian applications. Liquid hydrogen will play an important role in the future adoption of fuel cell commercial vehicles and heavy trucks.