Last year Hyosung Chairman Cho Hyun-joon made a large-scale investment in carbon fiber. This time he started another ambitious hydrogen economy project to build the world’s largest liquid hydrogen plant.
Hyosung and the Linde Group, a global provider of industrial gases, will invest won 300bn until 2022 in their joint enterprise of creating a value chain that covers everything about the setup and operation of liquid hydrogen production, transport, and recharging facilities. Hyosung and Linde signed an MoU at the Hyosung headquarters in Mapo, Seoul, with Chairman Cho and Linde Korea Chairman Sung Baek-seok.
Both companies will invest in the construction of a liquid hydrogen plant on an area of about 30,000 square meters within the site of the Hyosung Yongyeon plant in Ulsan. Its annual capacity of production is 13,000 tons of liquid hydrogen, enough to fuel 100,000 sedans. It will be the world’s single largest liquid hydrogen manufacturing facility. The two companies will form a joint venture this year, break ground in the first quarter of next year and complete the liquid hydrogen plant in 2022.
The new plant will produce liquid hydrogen by applying Linde’s hydrogen liquefaction technology and system to byproduct hydrogen produced by Hyosung Chemical Yongyeon Plant. Hydrogen liquefaction technology liquefies hydrogen in a high-pressure state of the gas. Linde has the world’s most advanced technology in liquid hydrogen production.