The Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) team has accomplished another ambitious goal, producing hydrogen using an electrolyser designed and built by the team.
The electrolyser was developed by a small team from FFI’s manufacturing arm in Western Australia, producing industrial hydrogen for the first time this week. Several new electrolyser technologies have been developed by FFI and added to their electrolyser patent portfolio. FFI’s electrolyser technology selection will be influenced by the results of these projects, as FFI works toward its goal of producing 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030.
FFI Chief Executive Officer Julie Shuttleworth said, “This is another outstanding achievement from our FFI in-house scientists and engineers – who are continuing to break new ground.
“The FFI team has designed and operated our own electrolyser system which will be key to developing FFI’s green hydrogen production into the future,” Ms Shuttleworth said.
FFI Chairman, Dr Andrew Forrest AO said, “This electrolyser was internally designed, built and commissioned by a small, dedicated team of experts – an impressive achievement that is representative of the hard work that is happening across the whole of FFI.
“The team spent thousands of hours on this project, facing setbacks along the way, but they pushed forward and managed to produce hydrogen before their stretch target date – something they should be incredibly proud of.
“This is not the first time FFI’s team of experts have beaten their stretch targets. Earlier this year, FFI retrofitted a huge mining haul truck to run on hydrogen, producing only steam, in just 130 days,” Dr Forrest said.
When the Dawson Road solar panels are completed, the electrolyser at FFI’s facility will be able to produce green hydrogen by 2022. A pressurized alkaline system was used to generate the hydrogen. The hydrogen gas management system that FFI built internally is now fully operational and will be used to test all of the company’s prototypes and concepts.
