Air Products plans blue hydrogen in US

Air Products & Chemicals plans to build what it says will be the world’s largest blue hydrogen complex in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. The $4.5 billion investment will be the industrial gas company’s largest ever in the US. The plant will have 20 million m³ per day of blue hydrogen capacity when it comes on line in 2026. Air Products will distribute some of the hydrogen via its Gulf Coast pipeline network; the balance will be converted into ammonia and sent around the world to special installations that will convert it back into hydrogen for truck and bus fuel. The hydrogen is called blue because some 95% of the CO₂ generated from producing it will be sequestered. To this end, the company has secured sites from the State of Louisiana where the CO₂—about 5 million metric tons annually—will be locked in geological pore space about 1.6 km underground. In June, the firm announced a blue hydrogen complex for Canada. It is also participating in a $5 billion green ammonia project in Saudi Arabia, that will make hydrogen for ammonia via electrolysis.