Why liquid hydrogen on a large scale?

The advantages of liquid hydrogen and gas are significant. Raw materials for hydrogen production are abundant on Earth, minimal energy is required for its production, and its only byproducts are heat and water. This makes hydrogen a very stable fuel and energy carrier when produced using green energy. This stable form of hydrogen is also known as green hydrogen.

Although there are still challenges related to green hydrogen production, an increasing number of applications being developed around hydrogen are underway. As you can read in our blog, “hydrogen fuel” for passenger cars, trucks, and liquid hydrogen airplanes, among others, is currently fully under development. Additionally, the use of this efficient energy carrier for transportation and energy storage has also been widely researched.

Unfortunately, very little green hydrogen gas is produced today, and most industries still use gray hydrogen. However, the expectation and hope is that this will significantly improve over the next few decades.

With many applications under development and the potential for hydrogen to become a sustainable fuel and energy carrier in the future, the production of liquid hydrogen can only increase. According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), to achieve a clean climate by the year 2050, approximately 306 million tons of green hydrogen will be needed annually. In comparison, in the year 2020, from natural gas and coal, primarily for use in the chemical and oil refining sectors, 87 million tons of hydrogen (mostly gray) were produced.

Large-scale liquid hydrogen storage

The increasing demand for sufficient hydrogen gas means higher goals for hydrogen storage and larger storage tanks. And while hydrogen tanks are relatively large today, they will only get bigger in the future.

NASA currently owns the largest cryogenic storage tank in the world. This tank, located in Florida, has a volume of 3800 cubic meters and a capacity of 270 tons of liquid hydrogen. JAXA in Japan also uses a large tank for hydrogen storage. This tank has a size of 540 cubic meters and a capacity of 38 tons of liquid hydrogen.

However, newer tanks are becoming even larger. Future liquid hydrogen storage tanks are expected to be about 13 times larger than NASA's current tank. These new tanks will be able to safely hold about 3500 tons of stored hydrogen.

The first tanks of this size are currently under development. For example, McDermott International, Ltd recently announced the design of a new hydrogen tank that is record-breaking. The tank is designed by CB&I Storage Solutions and 40000 square meters in size. The development of this tank is part of a study aimed at increasing the storage capacity of liquid hydrogen.

Not only on land but also at sea, massive hydrogen storage tanks are expected to take shape in the future. For example, Kawasaki Heavy Industries is currently hard at work designing a liquid hydrogen tank with four spherical storage tanks of 40000 square meters.

Anything to prevent heat leakage

Since liquid hydrogen must maintain its very low temperature of -252.9 degrees Celsius (boiling point), the entire hydrogen tank design is set up to prevent heat leakage. This applies to both the shape and the materials used for hydrogen storage and insulation.

Hydrogen storage tanks are usually spherical, unlike cylindrical tanks used for many other cryogenic gases. The spherical shape allows for minimal interaction between the tank and

Liquid hydrogen storage: larger storage tanks

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