Building a Green Hydrogen Future with Twaron?

With the growing importance of sustainability in our everyday lives, innovation has led to hydrogen playing an increasingly significant role in the global transition away from finite energy resources. Of course, Teijin is at the forefront of ensuring markets have the correct materials to unlock the potential of this sustainable energy source.

Contrary to what is expected of standard oil and gas pipelines, #hydrogen pipes must be extremely gas-tight and corrosion robust to handle hydrogen safely. Reinforced thermoplastic pipelines (RTP) made with Teijin’s popular Twaron? solution offers a great way to ensure hydrogen can be distributed safely, cost-effective and with minimal environmental impact.

Business Development Manager, and Energy Transition Specialist in Hydrogen at Teijin Aramid , Mark Breed has enabled many industries to utilize Teijin to drive a better future.

“Until recently, people were still asking if hydrogen could really play a central role in the global energy transition. Nobody is asking that question anymore. Sustainably produced green hydrogen is a clean, reliable, and highly agile energy carrier. It can help remove bottlenecks in the energy transition and enable the decarbonization of a wide range of applications, including heavy duty transportation, as well as entire industries that need hydrogen as feed-stock material to produce chemicals, fertilizers, steel or synthetic fuels".

Hydrogen, currently still expensive, is seen to become cost competitive in five to ten years, especially when produced at remote locations with excess solar and wind. From these locations hydrogen or ammonia (bonded hydrogen) will be shipped to continents with high energy needs. Once arrived, distribution of hydrogen by pipeline infrastructure is seen as the most safe and beneficial option. Besides re-use of existing natural gas infrastructure, new infrastructure is required to connect industrial clusters, hydrogen fuel stations, residential areas with the national hydrogen backbones or local hydrogen production.

The aforementioned RTP concept using Twaron? is perfectly suited to such needs, containing a special layer to prevent hydrogen permeation, and also weighing considerably less than rigid steel pipes with greater flexibility, making them much easier to handle. The long lengths, minimum number of connections to be made compared to steel and flexibility results in significant less on-site activities and installation costs.

?Aramid-based RTP has been used in oil and gas pipeline infrastructure for many years. Twaron?, in particular, is advantageous for this field thanks to its numerous positive traits. It allows pipes to be flexible, spool-able in long lengths and lightweight, while still giving excellent robustness. In a practicality context, this makes them much easier to handle during installation in contrast to RTPs which use other reinforcement agents such as glass as well as boasting economic and ecological value over the other methods. Delivering the best solution with the lowest environmental footprint.

Thanks to its high level of performance and innovative approach, Twaron? has now been certified for use in hydrogen pipeline infrastructure. In 2020, we began working with our partners SoluForce and Groningen Seaports on a demonstration project in the Netherlands – a global hotspot at the heart of green hydrogen #innovation. Testing, certification, permitting, engineering, all have been realized successfully?to deliver the demonstration project in 2023.

Of course, all energy sources are prone to fluctuations in supply and demand, with a variety of factors playing a part in this. Hydrogen allows surplus power to be stored up for later use, to enable a reliable flow of energy to power our work and home lives all year round.

When paired with the correct infrastructure - such as RTP using Twaron? - green hydrogen has the potential to support the large-scale integration of #renewables such as wind and solar power into the global energy mix; holding the power to unlock unprecedented levels of renewable sources.

?We are excited to help make this future a reality around the world, pushing our #sustainable development and providing solutions to more markets and industries.