Chennai Petroleum Corporation (CPCL) intends to emerge as a hydrogen production hub, to meet its captive consumption as well as supply green hydrogen for mobility and other energy-based requirements, including petrochemical production.

The company apprised regarding this on the sidelines of the conference on 'Emerging Technologies for the Chemical Sector' in Chennai.

CPCL is looking to participate as a stakeholder of Hydrogen Valley Innovation Cluster in collaboration with IIT-Madras and Tamil Nadu government.

IIT-Madras along with industry partners is developing a pilot electrolyser and it will be installed at its site to produce green hydrogen. The carbon capture technologies would offer a solution to expand the feedstock availability.
Green hydrogen produced by electrolysers in combination with CO2 could also act as a raw material to produce the building blocks.

The refining company has three steam methane reformers with a combined capacity of generating 98 KTPA of hydrogen, and each tonne of hydrogen produced, it is estimated that around nine to 12 tonne of CO2 is generated.

CPCL is considering options to trap this CO2 and market it as a product for downstream industries.