Air Liquide Secures EU Support for Large-Scale Low-Carbon Hydrogen Project

Air Liquide has been awarded a grant from the European Innovation Fund for its ENHANCE project in the port of Antwerp-Bruges, Belgium, that aims to produce and distribute low-carbon and renewable hydrogen derived from ammonia. As part of the project, Air Liquide intends to build, own and operate a first-of-its-kind large-scale renewable ammonia cracking plant and an innovative hydrogen liquefier. ENHANCE is the first European industrial-scale project for the production and distribution of low-carbon and renewable hydrogen using ammonia as a feedstock.

As part of this initiative, Air Liquide intends to retrofit one of its hydrogen production units located in the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, using renewable ammonia as a feedstock instead of natural gas, and would also build a hydrogen liquefier. This new facility would support the development of a low-carbon and renewable hydrogen supply chain in Europe and contribute to the decarbonization of a wide range of hard-to-abate customers, such as refineries, chemicals, as well as heavy-duty road, maritime transport and aviation. Replacing natural gas by ammonia to produce gaseous and liquid hydrogen would allow the project to reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 300,000 tonnes per year.

This project would capitalize on the knowledge and expertise acquired from the Group’s ammonia cracking pilot plant located in the port of Antwerp.

Ammonia - a molecule made of hydrogen and nitrogen - can notably be produced with a low-carbon footprint in geographies with abundant renewable energy sources such as sun, water and wind, or other low-carbon source of energy. A global supply chain infrastructure is already in place for its production, transportation and utilization at large scale, serving various industries.

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