Hyunjoon Cho, Chairman of Hyosung, Boards the Mobility Business

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] Hyosung Group has officially set sail to expand its hydrogen mobility business. Going beyond its existing hydrogen charging station business, it aims to build a hydrogen mobility value chain excluding finished vehicles, covering liquefied hydrogen production, transportation, and hydrogen charging stations.

Hyosung, together with the global chemical company Linde Group, plans to invest a total of 300 billion KRW to establish a liquefied hydrogen plant at the Ulsan Yongyeon factory by 2022. The production capacity of the newly established liquefied hydrogen plant will reach about 13,000 tons per day on average (enough for 100,000 passenger cars). This is the largest scale in the world for a single facility.

This joint venture is significant in that Hyosung is building an upstream hydrogen car-related chain from hydrogen production, transportation, storage, to charging stations.

Hyosung produces hydrogen during the manufacturing process of chemical products (polypropylene). To use this produced hydrogen (by-product hydrogen) in various mobility sectors such as hydrogen cars, drones, ships, and forklifts, it must be converted into liquid form. Liquefied hydrogen can reduce volume to 1/800 and is stored under safe low pressure, making storage and transportation easier. Linde Group possesses top-level liquefied hydrogen technology.

Once liquefied hydrogen production is in full swing, the efficiency of hydrogen charging stations operated by Hyosung is expected to improve significantly. With the introduction of liquefied hydrogen charging, the charging speed will increase about fourfold, reducing the time to charge one passenger car (based on 5 kg) from 12 minutes with gaseous hydrogen to 3 minutes. Charging time for large vehicles (25 kg) requiring high-capacity hydrogen fuel will also be greatly reduced, expanding the market for large hydrogen vehicles such as hydrogen buses and trucks.

Hyosung Heavy Industries’ hydrogen charging station deployment business is also expected to accelerate. Since liquefied hydrogen can reduce the volume of storage containers, charging stations can be built on sites about 30% the size of gaseous hydrogen charging stations.

Hyosung Advanced Materials, which produces carbon fiber, is also expected to gain momentum in the mobility business. Hyosung Advanced Materials is accelerating the development and supply of carbon fiber for hydrogen fuel tanks. Earlier, Chairman Cho announced plans to invest about 1 trillion KRW by 2028 in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, to produce 24,000 tons of carbon fiber annually.

Hyosung Chairman Cho Hyun-joon (pictured) said, "The core of the liquefied hydrogen business is to store and transport hydrogen efficiently and safely," adding, "This investment will play a major role in revitalizing the domestic hydrogen industry ecosystem in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.