Hyundai Engineering to Build Hydrogen Production Plant in Dangjin, Chungnam "400 Billion KRW Investment by 2024"

Entering the Hydrogen Production Business Using Carbon Dioxide and Waste Plastics as Eco-Friendly Energy Sources
Processing 100,000 Tons of Waste Plastics Annually by 2024 to Produce 22,000 Tons of Clean Hydrogen... 400 Billion KRW Investment

Waste Plastic Recycling Process / Provided by Hyundai Engineering.

Hyundai Engineering has secured technology to utilize waste plastic as a resource and is advancing a high-purity clean hydrogen production project.

On the 21st, Hyundai Engineering announced that it will invest a total of 400 billion KRW to build a hydrogen production plant in Dangjin, Chungnam. The company explained that it plans to complete a technology demonstration test for producing high-purity clean hydrogen using waste plastic as raw material by the end of this year, start constructing the hydrogen production plant from 2022, and aim for full-scale commercial production in 2024.

Hyundai Engineering plans to process 100,000 tons of waste plastic raw material annually to produce 22,000 tons of high-purity clean hydrogen products per year. The 22,000 tons of hydrogen is enough to operate 150,000 hydrogen vehicles for one year (based on an annual driving distance of 14,000 km).

According to data recently released by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on plastic waste emissions by country, South Korea’s per capita plastic waste emission is 88 kg per year, ranking third in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom. The government announced plans to increase the proportion of waste plastic pyrolysis treatment from 0.1% in 2020 to 10% by 2030, leading the circular economy and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The scale of waste plastic pyrolysis treatment is planned to expand from 10,000 tons annually to 310,000 tons by 2025 and 900,000 tons by 2030.

The hydrogen production technology promoted by Hyundai Engineering involves pyrolyzing waste plastic, feeding it into a gasifier to produce synthesis gas?a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen?and then producing high-purity (99.999%) hydrogen products through catalytic reactions. The company explained that by applying carbon dioxide resource utilization technology currently undergoing demonstration testing at Hyundai Steel’s Incheon plant, most of the carbon dioxide generated at the waste plastic resource plant can be reduced.

Earlier, Hyundai Engineering launched the G2E (Green Environment & Energy) division through an organizational restructuring in July this year, which is dedicated to eco-friendly energy businesses such as CO2 resource utilization, clean hydrogen production, next-generation small reactors, and environmental resource circulation projects, and is promoting continuous technology development and active investment.

A Hyundai Engineering official said, "By entering the clean hydrogen production business through waste plastic resource utilization, we expect to play the role of an energy supplier, which is one pillar of Hyundai Motor Group’s hydrogen value chain," adding, "We will secure continuous growth momentum in the eco-friendly energy business sector and practice ESG management."

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