OREANDA-NEWS. Japanese engineering, trading and shipping companies have launched an international hydrogen supply chain demonstration project, aiming to take the lead in technologies to fuel thermal power plants and combat global warming.

Engineering firm Chiyoda, trading companies Mitsubishi and Mitsui and shipping firm NYK Line today launched what they called the world's first global hydrogen supply demonstration project, which aims to produce and supply up to 210t of hydrogen from January-December 2020. The project is funded by government agencies, which are hoping to develop a global hydrogen supply chain for use in full-scale power generation by 2030.

The project, called the Advanced Hydrogen Energy Chain Association for Technology Development (Ahead), is planning to begin construction of a demonstration plant next month. The pilot plant will consist of a hydrogenation unit in Brunei and a dehydrogenation plant in Kawasaki, west of Tokyo on Japan's Pacific coast.

Hydrogen will be produced from naturally-gasified LNG during the liquefaction process at the 7.2mn t/yr Brunei LNG plant, in which Mitsubishi has a 25pc share. The planned hydrogenation plant will use Chiyoda's technology to fix hydrogen with toluene and convert it to methylcyclohexane (MCH), which remains in a liquid form at normal temperature and pressure, for storage and transportation.

The MCH then will be shipped to the proposed dehydrogenation plant in Kawasaki, where the hydrogen will be extracted and mixed with gas for burning at a power generation unit at Japanese firm Showa Shell's 70,000 b/d Kawasaki oil refinery. Toa Oil, a 50.1pc owned subsidiary of Showa Shell, operates 79MW gas turbine and 195MW steam turbine power generators at the Kawasaki refinery under a power wholesale joint venture with electricity firm J Power. Toluene removed from MCH will be transported back to Brunei for use in the hydrogenation process at the demonstration plant.

Japan has stepped up efforts to find ways of using carbon-neutral hydrogen for thermal power generation as it looks to fight global warming. Japanese utility Chugoku Electric Power and state-owned Japan Science and Technology Agency in early July conducted a pilot study to burn coal mixed with 0.6pc ammonia, which contains hydrogen, at the 156MW No. 2 coal-fired power generation unit at the utility's Mizushima power plant in Okayama prefecture.