The Oil Trick with Hydrogen

Green hydro­gen is con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant com­po­nents of the ener­gy tran­si­tion sought the world over. Gen­er­at­ed via elec­trol­y­sis from renew­able ener­gies like wind or solar power with­out emit­ting green­house gases, it will play an essen­tial trans­for­ma­tive role in many areas of the economy—from the steel indus­try to glass pro­duc­tion. One chal­lenge is how to make suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of green hydro­gen avail­able in eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable ways. A key role is there­fore played by imports from regions such as Spain, the Mid­dle East, Africa, and Aus­tralia. How­ev­er, stor­age and trans­port of this high­ly volatile gas have thus far proved dif­fi­cult. The Hydro­ge­nious LOHC Tech­nolo­gies com­pa­ny, based in the north­ern Bavar­i­an city of Erlan­gen, offers a solu­tion: a process it has devel­oped by which green hydro­gen is bound to an oil. “Packed in oil,” the gas can be stored and trans­port­ed under ambi­ent con­di­tions. It is then released and the oil is reused for the next load.

The road to suc­cess was long. Dr. Daniel Teich­mann, a chem­i­cal engi­neer, found­ed Hydro­ge­nious LOHC Tech­nolo­gies GmbH in 2013. The four cap­i­tal let­ters in the com­pa­ny’s name stand for “liq­uid organ­ic hydro­gen car­ri­ers.” Know­ing that organ­ic com­pounds can absorb and release hydro­gen in chem­i­cal reac­tions, Teich­mann arrived at the idea of using them to store and trans­port the gas. He refined this approach in the course of a research pro­gram at the Friedrich Alexan­der Uni­ver­si­ty Erlan­gen-Nürn­berg (FAU). This south­ern Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty has held a sin­gle-digit share of the spin-off since 2014. In return, it has trans­ferred 15 patents to Hydro­ge­nious. The high stor­age den­si­ty of the LOHC process enables it to han­dle five times as much hydro­gen as com­pres­sion process­es, for exam­ple. Teich­mann found that a heat-trans­fer­ring ben­zyl­toluene oil is superbly suit­ed for this pur­pose, and Hydro­ge­nious has patent­ed the process.

Dr. Andreas Lehmann, the com­pa­ny’s head of strat­e­gy, high­lights a poten­tial trump card for com­mer­cial­iz­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. “We can use all the infra­struc­ture instru­ments that already exist for con­ven­tion­al fuels like diesel, includ­ing oil tankers, pumps, and tanker trucks.” More­over, the oil is exceed­ing­ly sta­ble and secure because it can be han­dled and stored under nor­mal con­di­tions. It is not explo­sive or volatile, and emits no toxic cor­ro­sive vapors such as ammo­nia. The process is cur­rent­ly being test­ed at mul­ti­ple demon­stra­tion facil­i­ties. The largest is planned for CHEMPARK in the town of Dor­ma­gen, with an antic­i­pat­ed stor­age capac­i­ty of five tons a day. “That means we’ve reached an indus­tri­al scale,” Lehmann notes.

The man­agers of the Erlan­gen-based com­pa­ny are cer­tain that not only indus­tri­al sec­tors but also “trans­port will ben­e­fit from hydro­gen drive sys­tems and there­fore from our LOHC appli­ca­tion.” Lehmann goes on to explain that LOHC enables safe infra­struc­ture for instal­la­tions such as fuel­ing sta­tions. The process could also soon be used at sea. In July of this year the com­pa­ny, which now holds 45 patents and employs 125 peo­ple, entered a joint ven­ture with the Scan­di­na­vian ship­ping enter­prise Johannes Østen­sjø dy AS. The Hydro­ge­nious LOHC Mar­itime AS joint sub­sidiary is expect­ed to devel­op and mar­ket an inno­v­a­tive emis­sion-free LOHC-based appli­ca­tion for the ship­ping sec­tor. The first freighter equipped with the novel tech­nol­o­gy “devel­oped in Erlan­gen” could set off as early as 2024.

Investors are con­fi­dent about the young tech­nol­o­gy experts’ prospects. AP Ven­tures, the ven­ture-cap­i­tal man­age­ment com­pa­ny for Anglo Amer­i­can Plat­inum, and South Africa’s Pub­lic Invest­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, quick­ly came on board. They were fol­lowed by oil-ter­mi­nal oper­a­tor Vopak, the Winkel­mann Group, the Mit­subishi cor­po­ra­tion, the Cove­stro chem­i­cal group, and Hyundai Motor Com­pa­ny. In the lat­est round of fund­ing, these six investors were joined by four more: Jera, Japan’s largest power com­pa­ny, Teme­sek, the cap­i­tal hold­ing com­pa­ny for the gov­ern­ment of Sin­ga­pore, Chevron Oil Cor­po­ra­tion, and the Pavil­ion Cap­i­tal ven­ture investor. “That gives our growth plans a very strong finan­cial and strate­gic foun­da­tion,” says Lehmann.

Hydro­ge­nious’s inno­v­a­tive power and pio­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy were hon­ored at this year’s Ger­man Entre­pre­neur­ial Awards (Deutsch­er Grün­der­preis). The jury, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from DG’s part­ners and spon­sors includ­ing Stern mag­a­zine, the Sparkasse sav­ings and loan insti­tu­tions, ZDF tele­vi­sion, and Porsche, praised its devel­op­ment of a rev­o­lu­tion­ary stor­age and trans­port tech­nol­o­gy that can facil­i­tate hydro­gen’s break­through as an ener­gy vec­tor in the 21st cen­tu­ry. Hydro­ge­nious was nom­i­nat­ed in the “Up and Com­ing” cat­e­go­ry. Like the other final­ists, it will receive four weeks of indi­vid­ual and cus­tomized atten­tion by the Porsche Con­sult­ing man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy. “We want to work with the con­sul­tants to refine our strat­e­gy for the com­ing years as we tran­si­tion from devel­op­ment work to a ser­vice and com­mer­cial enter­prise,” says Lehmann. “Porsche Con­sult­ing’s ideas and expe­ri­ence in the mobil­i­ty sec­tor will be help­ful, as will its con­sul­tants’ exper­tise in bring­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices onto the mar­ket.” Michael Tribus, Senior Part­ner at Porsche Con­sult­ing, adds that “Hydro­ge­nious com­mands pre­cise­ly the tech­nol­o­gy that can make hydro­gen a suc­cess. We want to help the com­pa­ny become an eco­nom­ic suc­cess as well.”