The liquid deposit bottle for our energy hydrogen logistics: liquid organic hydrogen carriers

Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHCs) represent a promising alternative for the storage and transport of the green energy carrier hydrogen. Compared to conventional meth-ods, such as compression and liquefaction, the LOHC tech-nology offers advantages in terms of safety and loss-free storage at comparable volumetric energy density. Due to reversible chemical bonding of the hydrogen in the LOHC fluid, the latter can be regarded as a liquid returnable bottle.The storage and release take place in each case via a chemical reaction. In this article, various application scenarios of the LOHC technology and related current projects are pre-sented. In summary, it can be stated that the supply of build-ings with electricity and heat can be realised by combining LOHC dehydrogenation and a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The climate-neutral supply of industrial parks can be improved by integrating a seasonal LOHC storage system into an exist-ing heating network. The coupling with a combined heat and power plant enables the use of all heat flows and a high stor-age efficiency. In addition, the LOHC technology can contrib-ute to the realisation of safe, cheap and emission-free rail transport on non-electrified lines. In contrast to the use of gaseous hydrogen as fuel, the existing infrastructure for die-sel can be further used for refuelling trains with the liquid LOHC storage medium.