The establishment of a hydrogen plant and CO2 circulation system is designed to create a sustainable future for the company's petrochemical business by achieving carbon neutrality.
LG Chem says it plans to produce hydrogen as a key component of its long-term 2050 net zero corporate sustainability goal. To this end, the South Korean chemical company says it will establish a plant in Daesan, Korea, with the capacity to produce 50,000 tons of hydrogen annually by the second quarter in 2024. The plant will be the first LG Chem site to produce pure hydrogen, apart from those earned as off-gases.
“The establishment of our hydrogen plant and CO2 circulation system is an effort to create a sustainable future for our petrochemical business by achieving carbon neutrality,” says Noh Kug-lae, head of petrochemical business at LG Chem, in a news release from the organization. “Hydrogen will allow us to convert our petrochemical pyrolysis to a more sustainable low-carbon process.”
The new plant employs technology that converts methane to hydrogen by creating a chemical reaction under high-temperature steam. Hydrogen will be made from methane off-gases generated by the naphtha cracking center (NCC) in the process of producing feedstocks. This hydrogen will then be depolymerized under high-temperature to be used as fuel again, according to the company.
Construction of LG Chem’s hydrogen plant is expected to commence in the first half of 2023 and scheduled for completion by the second quarter of 2024. Once fully operational, LG Chem says it expects the plant to reduce carbon emissions by 140,000 tons annually – equivalent to 1 million newly-planted trees, according to the company – by replacing methane used in the NCC process with high-purity hydrogen, which does not create carbon dioxide (CO2) during combustion.
Read the entire press release at www.lgchem.com