Overview

LH2CRAFT is a 4-year Research & Innovation project, being funded by the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking of the EU and the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) for the UK-based partners as well as receiving contributions from the private sector (grant-numbers 10082044 and 10070575). The project was the only proposal that was awarded by the EU within the Call for Proposals (HORIZON-JTI-CLEANH2-2022-02-06: ‘Development of large scale LH₂ containment for shipping.’).

The overall goal of LH₂CRAFT is to develop a next generation sustainable, commercially attractive, and safe technology for long-term storage and long-distance transportation of Liquid Hydrogen (LH₂) on ships; to be realised by developing new design solutions for storage at a temperature of 20 K and demonstrating it on a 180 m³ containment system. Two societal objectives will be served: society’s needs and EU’s strong global maritime leadership with major impacts on EU’s innovation-driven industry providing highly skilled jobs, efficient technological solutions, and international regulatory standards.

The Consortium

The well-balanced and complementary consortium consists of 14 partners from 9 different countries, including 3 major classification societies/ IACS members (ABS, RINA, BV), 4 technical universities (TUD, NTUA, UoS, UPAT), 4 industry partners (HD KSOE, GBD, ACT, HYD), 1 research organization (TWI) and 2 network associations (WEGEMT, EASN). They will bring high technological excellence in design and materials, innovation, standardisation and training capabilities, while their long experience in business scenarios and innovation management will benefit LH₂CRAFT objectives.

Scope

LH₂CRAFT aims at the development of a next generation sustainable, commercially attractive, and safe technology for long-term storage and transportation of large quantities of LH₂ on ships. LH₂CRAFT will showcase the entire chain required for the transportation of LH₂ in large quantities, from supply to its application and to develop guidelines and best practices. This will increase the confidence in the use of Hydrogen (H₂) and promote its uptake. LH₂CRAFT aspires to be a beacon project for H₂ transportation vessels. It provides the information and a head start in ship and system design, safety evaluation, performance estimation, and an integrated LH₂ carrier vessel design.

Aim and Objectives

Aim

LH₂CRAFT has the ambition to develop a next generation of sustainable, commercially attractive, and safe containment technology for long-term storage and transportation of LH₂ on ships. It aims at developing an innovative containment system of membrane-type that will be available for all commercial vessels carrying H₂ as cargo (or even as fuel in certain applications) over longer distances and in large volumes (in liquid form). This process will be realised by developing innovative design solutions that aim in achieving a large storage capacity of liquid H₂ (e.g., 200,000 m³) at a temperature of 20 K and demonstrating it on an approximate 180 m³ containment system.

Objectives

• Safe, cost and energy efficient storage and transportation of large LH₂ quantities over longer distances.
• Develop an LH₂ Cargo Containment System (CCS) for shipping, exceeding currently demonstrated sizes.
• Design modular and scalable LH₂ storage to large dimensions, similar to those of existing LNG carriers.
• Achieve Approval in Principle (AiP) for CCS concept and general approval by major IACS classification societies.
• Demonstrate the CCS via the detailed design, construction, and testing of a reduced size prototype.
• Develop a safe preliminary integrated ship design and carry out the corresponding cost estimation.

Approach/Methodology

The proposed technological innovation development plan addresses research, design, safety, modularity, regulatory and digitisation aspects of LH₂ storage according to the following 8 development steps breakdown. The proposed steps will be split in several work packages to be consistent and relevant to the call topics.

• Step 1: Links to Research, Development and Innovation projects, synergies, and open innovation specification.
• Step 2: Concept, basic and detailed design of LH₂-storage tanks.
• Step 3: Alternative containment types and designs.
• Step 4: Integrated ship design for the tank storage systems.
• Step 5: Multi-scale testing procedure.
• Step 6: Operational, risk and safety assessment of LH₂ as cargo.
• Step 7: Approval in Principle and general approval.
• Step 8: Techno-commercial evaluation of the proposed solutions.

LH2CRAFT Outcomes and Impacts

LH₂CRAFT has a direct outcome and impact on the Partners and the field, and will deliver:

• New products: Core technologies to be further developed to products from companies HD KSOE, HYD and GBD.
• New services to clients: HYD, RINA, ABS, TWI based upon consultancy in design and operation services. GBD will be recognised as a knowledgeable outfitter qualified for system installation developed within the project.
• New business processes: HYD will acquire experience on design, organisation and supervision tasks for H₂ storage and containment and for the design of liquified H₂ carriers, a design to be disseminated and communicated to the shipping transportation.
• Higher efficiency: shipping and stakeholders in the H₂ value chain will benefit by the efficient transportation.
• Decreased development costs: the concept will be the base for reduced development and commercialisation costs for the new technologies for LH₂ transportation.
• Integrated ship design for liquified H₂ carriers will be developed to be adopted by the industry.
• Provide solutions similar to existing LNG carrier designs or adaptable to them.
• Increased profits: Towards the climate neutrality by 2050, it is not clear whether taxation rates on heavy fuel oil will be increased or significant tax advantages for alternative fuels will be granted. In any case, the reduction in transportation costs leads to increased profits as well as to reduced final energy cost to the end-user industries.
• New guidelines and best practices: ABS, RINA and BV offering regulatory testing and certification, plan approval and lifecycle compliance assessment will also lead the classification industry to better understanding of the risks and requirements associated with LH₂ transportation.

• Know-how & technology transfer: TUD, UoS, NTUA to SMEs, contributing to new job generation and production sustainability of Europe. UoS developing and updating academic courses or modules in Zero Carbon technologies and safety handling of hazardous gases or other low-flashpoint fuels for marine sectors.
• Know-how & technology transfer from Asian shipbuilding to EU companies means increase of EU competitiveness based on the existing background without the need to expensive research from scratch.
• Closer cooperation between the EU and East Asian countries with the aim of an efficient H₂ market due to lower transportation costs benefiting the society in general.
• European leadership in H₂ transportation and LH₂ carrier ship design, creating a higher economic and competitive advantage for EU companies, as well as potential exploitation of the design by EU shipyards.
• Higher safety: A risk assessment approach to comprehensively evaluate the safety of the solution for demonstrator and desktop studies which will save the assessing time and provide high quality evaluation to the marine industry (including shipyards, ship owners, ship operators etc.).
• Initiation of a whole new market for the transportation of H₂ over very long distances, create thus trading of H₂ as a new commodity exploiting the arbitrage between cheaper production and supply in some countries.
• A new clean H₂-based economy will flourish both creating new jobs and skill requirements and transforming the society to a clean, emission free environment.
• Establishment of a Knowledge Hub for open innovation and cross-sector knowledge and technology transfer will enable people of different abilities to participate in the solutions created.

Academics Involved

Prof. Peilin Zhou (peilin.zhou@strath.ac.uk)

Dr Byongug Jeong (byongug.jeong@strath.ac.uk)

Dr Haibin Wang (haibin.wang@strath.ac.uk)