Chart Industries targets marine technology and LH2 potential

Chart and McPhy also executed a commercial MOU on October 13 aimed at stimulating new hydrogen demand. The companies aim to scale up projects for production, storage, transport and fuelling in all addressable markets, including marine. Chart sees these markets as being worth $1.1 billion by 2023, with marine making up about $5 million of that figure.

Chart CEO and President Jill Evanko sees marine as requiring particular attention as it could leapfrog LNG. In other industries, LNG demand is growing, with hydrogen in the background. The two are going to compete for the next couple of decades, she says, but for marine, it is about kicking a fuel and sticking with it.

Evanko has stated that the company plans to expand its equipment offering for the marine market. Chart currently supplies hydrogen technology including storage tanks, transport equipment, flow meters and fueling stations. The company’s 23 global locations for manufacturing equipment, including 10 in Europe, offer capabilities to manufacture hydrogen equipment in China, India, Europe and the US.

Chart has made a number of corporate investments over the past few months but has committed to organic development of technology as well. In particular, the company aims to develop liquid hydrogen pumps, liquid hydrogen vehicle tanks, hydrogen liquefaction technology and to improve hydrogen insulation technology.

Evanko foresees a transition from gaseous to liquid hydrogen use. Liquid hydrogen is more volumetrically efficient, she says, which increases the payload for hydrogen transport, and it also increases the potential range of liquid-fuelled vehicles. Additionally, liquid hydrogen fuel stations can store more fuel and deliver more to vehicles in a smaller footprint. “Liquid hydrogen is also much easier to transfer between containers, because it is a liquid that can be pumped, and pumped much more quickly in large quantities,” she says. Gaseous hydrogen typically requires pressure transfer or a slower, more costly compressor.

The US currently uses more liquid hydrogen than some other regions, she says, but it has been a hot topic in the EU over the last few months, primarily because its long-haul potential. The McPhy deal comes in light of the recent EU clean energy stimulus package as well as France’s recently released EUR7 billion national hydrogen strategy to use hydrogen in industrial processes and transport to cut its CO₂ output by 6 million tons by 2030.