- Germany to look into the potential use of iron for storage and transport of green hydrogen
Germany, through the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) is working on a project to look into the potential use of iron for the safe storage and transport of green hydrogen.
A professor of metallurgy at UDE, Rueduger Deike, and his team will investigate the possibility of developing a concept for the industrial-scale implementation of an approach involving the production of green hydrogen from solar power in regions with strong solar radiation and the subsequent reduction of iron ore to iron through a chemical reaction.
Plans are that the iron will be transported in the form of briquettes or pellets to a place there hydrogen and iron oxide will be produced, using a reverse reaction. The hydrogen is only to be consumed when there is a need.
The project is called the Me2H2 iron-steam process and has a total of EUR 1.3 million in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for three years.
Apart from project coordinator UDE, other participants in the research initiative include the Clausthal University of Technology, the Leibniz Institute for Materials-Oriented Technologies (IWT), and thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG and SMS group GmbH as associated partners.