thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions

Erika Niino-Esser
Business Developer/ Technical Specialist
Hydrogen & Green Chemicals

thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions AG | Office 1103, Sky Tower Offices, Al Reem Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Mobile: +971 50 864 9003  |  Phone +971 2679 2799
erika.niino-esser@thyssenkrupp.com
www.thyssenkrupp-industrial-solutions.com

Large-scale water electrolyser by thyssenkrupp

Since 2016 the CCU approach is investigated together with several partners in the public funded Carbon2Chem® project next to thyssenkrupp’s steel production site in Duisburg, Germany. Carbon2Chem® is a research project funded by the German government, where CCU is taking place based on steel mill gases and hydrogen from water electrolysis. The plants, in which the major waste gases are generated during steel production are the blast furnace, the coke oven and the converter. All three gas streams together contain around 43 % nitrogen, 25 % carbon monoxide, 21 % carbon dioxide, and only 8 % of hydrogen. The rest are other contaminants, which are harmful for the catalysts during chemical production, but are very difficult to segregate. For utilizing nitrogen for ammonia production and carbon-containing gases for methanol and higher alcohols, an external source of hydrogen is required. The use of steel mill gases from steel production in the chemical production is an extremely innovative but relatively new. For this reason, Carbon2Chem® plants have so far only been installed on a demonstration, pilot, and laboratory scale, but are now ready for the next steps of scaling up.
In order to satisfy the demand of hydrogen at the Carbon2Chem® project a water electrolysis plant with a capacity of 2 megawatt is installed. This demonstration plant is the first megawatt-scale alkaline water electrolysis from thyssenkrupp nucera. Since its operation starting in April 2018 the current cell design for alkaline water electrolysis has been qualified at this test facility. Continuous improvement of cell components, such as electrode coating or separators, have been conducted under real operating conditions. One of the real operating conditions include the intermittent operation simulating a renewable energy source. Together with E.ON, a German energy company, it has been shown that thyssenkrupp’s alkaline water electrolysis meets the technical requirement to participate in the primary reserve market in Germany. Primary reserve control is the most technologically challenging requirement to meet for the German grid system. Therefore, thyssenkrupp’s alkaline water electrolysis responses very fast in dynamic operation and is suitable for direct connection with renewable energy sources.
Furthermore, thyssenkrupp provides large-scale technologies along the whole hydrogen value chain, which are not limited to water electrolysers, but also ammonia production and ammonia cracking.

Erika Niino-Esser: Erika Niino-Esser is a Business Developer and Technical Specialist for Hydrogen and Green Chemicals at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions in Abu Dhabi. Previously, she was a Product Development Engineer for Water Electrolysis at thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers. In this position, she was also a technical advisor for the 2 MW water electrolysis plant of the public-funded research project Carbon2Chem® in Germany. Erika graduated with a Master of Science in Energy and Chemical Engineering from Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.