Hydrogenious LOHC has achieved a significant milestone towards designing, building, and operating the world’s largest hydrogenation plant for the safe and efficient storage of hydrogen in the LOHC benzyltoluene Chempark Dormagen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Project Hector has now received the official building and operating permit for the storage plant in accordance with §4 of the German Federal Immission Control Act.Hy
The building and operating permit of this first-of-its-kind LOHC storage plant constitutes a major achievement: Hydrogenious LOHC’s innovative technology is considered mature and proven by the authorities, ready for implementation and operation on an industrial scale. The persistence and hard work of Hydrogenious LOHC’s team and its partners Covestro Deutschland AG and Currenta GmbH. OHG have laid the foundation for this success.
LOHC Industrial Solutions NRW GmbH, a subsidiary of Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies based in Neuss, will be responsible for the project management, the construction and subsequent operation of the plant. Commissioning and starting commercial operations are presently scheduled for the end of 2027 with a plant capacity of approximately 1,800 tonnes of hydrogen per year, which will be safely stored in benzyltoluene.
The plant will be built at Covestro’s site in the Chempark Dormagen. Covestro Deutschland AG has been a shareholder in Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies GmbH since 2019 and intends to supply hydrogen for the facility, qualified as RFNBO (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin) and produced in their chlorine electrolysis plants.
Project Hector is also aimed at advancing scientific insights to further develop the LOHC technology. The Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN), part of Forschungszentrum Jülich, supports the project and focuses on optimizing catalyst performance, ensuring the quality of hydrogen and LOHC materials, and developing robust quality assurance processes for industrial-scale applications. Project ’Hector’ will receive funding in the amount of €9 million from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia under the progress.nrw program, of which about €2 million have been awarded to the HI ERN for the scientific work.
Dr. Andreas Lehmann, CEO of Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies says: ‘The official approval of the storage plant is a significant achievement for our team and partners. It demonstrates the viability of our LOHC technology on an industrial scale and marks an important step forward in our mission to advance the hydrogen economy. We are grateful for the support of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and our partners and look forward to the progress of this groundbreaking project.’
Dr.-Ing. Stefan Bürkle, chief operating officer of Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies adds: ‘Realising the world’s first commercial, end-to-end LOHC-BT value chain, represents an exciting challenge for Hydrogenious as a company and for every single individual involved. We will now move forward to the next project phase for both, the ‘Hector’ storage plant and the ‘Blue Danube’ release plant in the Ingolstadt region, soon entering the FEED and EPCm phase.’
