The inauguration marks AKROS Energy's transition from technology development into market entry, addressing a central barrier to the international hydrogen economy: the safe, scalable long-distance transport and storage of hydrogen.
“With the pilot plant, we are showing that our technology works at industrial scale,” said Johannes Emigholz, CEO of AKROS Energy. “Salt as a hydrogen carrier offers a safe, low-cost, and infrastructure-light pathway to bring hydrogen from regions where it can be produced abundantly to the industrial markets that need it.”
How the technology works
At the heart of the pilot is a containerised conversion system in which AKROS' proprietary catalyst converts an aqueous solution of potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) — widely used in industry as baking powder — together with hydrogen, into potassium formate (KCOOH). The loaded salt is stable, non-toxic, non-flammable, environmentally harmless and indefinitely storable. At the destination, the reaction is reversed to release hydrogen on demand.
Industry and research partners
The pilot plant was realised with significant contributions from industry partners Evonik and Siemens, long-term partners for the technology scale-up. It is also the centerpiece of FormaPort, a publicly co-funded R&D collaboration backed by the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and co-financed by the European Union, with partners AKROS Energy (lead), LIKAT, TAB and Hochschule Wismar.
