Air Liquide's Ammonia Cracker Unlocks Hydrogen Trade

The hydrogen economy just got a major breakthrough. Air Liquide has successfully commissioned the world's first industrial-scale ammonia cracking pilot unit at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium, capable of converting 30 tons of ammonia per day into hydrogen. This isn't just another pilot project, it's the missing technology that could finally enable global hydrogen trade at scale.

For years, the biggest obstacle to building a robust hydrogen economy has been transport. Hydrogen is light, volatile, and tricky to move across oceans or continents. Air Liquide's new facility proves that ammonia can serve as an effective hydrogen carrier, and more importantly, that it can be cracked back into hydrogen at industrial volumes.

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Why Ammonia Solves Hydrogen's Biggest Challenge

Transporting pure hydrogen over long distances remains expensive and energy-intensive. Compressed or liquefied hydrogen requires specialized infrastructure and extreme conditions. Ammonia changes the equation entirely.

As a molecule made of hydrogen and nitrogen, ammonia offers three critical advantages:

• Higher energy density – Ammonia contains three times more energy per volume than compressed hydrogen and 1.5 times more than liquefied hydrogen.
• Existing infrastructure – A global supply chain already exists for ammonia production, transportation, and storage, with approximately 25 million tons transported annually by road, rail, ship, and pipeline.
• Lower transport costs – Using ammonia to ship hydrogen requires far fewer vessels to move the same amount of energy across continents.

The catch? You need a way to efficiently convert that ammonia back into hydrogen at the destination. That's exactly what Air Liquide has now demonstrated at commercial scale.

What Makes This Technology Unique

Air Liquide's ammonia cracking process involves passing ammonia through reactor tubes filled with catalysts at extremely high temperatures to separate nitrogen from hydrogen. What sets this technology apart is the energy efficiency built into the design.

The proprietary system uses next-generation reactor tubes with heat integration technology. This allows the facility to recover heat from hot streams and recycle energy within the system, achieving the highest possible ammonia-to-hydrogen conversion yield with zero direct CO₂ emissions. The process also tackles critical technical challenges including process safety, advanced catalysis, ammonia combustion, and efficient molecule separation.

The pilot's success demonstrates Air Liquide's ability to scale technologies from laboratory research to industrial applications. Key innovations developed during this project span multiple technical areas, showcasing breakthrough capabilities in materials science and chemical engineering.

Building Global Hydrogen Supply Chains

The technology unlocks a crucial piece of the hydrogen economy puzzle. Regions with abundant renewable energy resources like solar, wind, and hydro can now produce low-carbon ammonia locally. That ammonia can then be shipped efficiently to industrial hubs worldwide, where facilities like Air Liquide's can crack it back into hydrogen for use in decarbonizing heavy industry and mobility sectors. Regional hydrogen hubs developing across North America could become major consumers of this imported hydrogen.

This creates entirely new trade routes and business models. Countries with limited renewable resources can import clean hydrogen via ammonia, while energy-rich nations can export their renewable capacity in molecular form. The existing ammonia infrastructure means much of the logistics framework is already in place.

Air Liquide's achievement comes at a strategic moment. Europe's Renewable Energy Directive requires that by 2030, at least 42% of hydrogen used in industry and 29% of energy consumed in transport must come from renewable sources. Western Europe, South Korea, and Japan are all positioning themselves as major importers of low-carbon ammonia with plans to crack it domestically.

Three Ways This Changes The Hydrogen Market

The successful pilot creates ripple effects across multiple sectors:

1. Industrial decarbonization becomes more feasible – Refineries, chemical plants, and steel manufacturers can now access renewable hydrogen without building their own production facilities. They can import ammonia and crack it on-site or nearby.
2. Maritime shipping gains a clean fuel option – Ammonia itself is being developed as a zero-carbon marine fuel, and this technology provides optionality to convert it to hydrogen for fuel cells when needed. The same technology could eventually support sustainable aviation fuel production pathways.
3. Renewable energy exports get a viable pathway – Countries with excess renewable capacity can monetize it by producing and exporting ammonia, creating new revenue streams and energy security.

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North America's Ammonia Momentum

While Air Liquide's breakthrough happened in Belgium, North America is positioning itself as a major player in the ammonia economy. Multiple blue ammonia projects worth billions are underway across the Gulf Coast, creating production capacity that could feed global hydrogen demand.

Projects like Blue Point Number One in Louisiana are drawing massive investments from companies like Linde, CF Industries, JERA, and Mitsui & Co. These facilities will produce low-carbon ammonia at scale, much of which is expected to be exported to markets where cracking technology like Air Liquide's can convert it back to hydrogen.

The combination of North American ammonia production capacity and proven cracking technology in destination markets creates the framework for a transatlantic hydrogen trade. This could reshape energy security dynamics and accelerate decarbonization timelines across multiple continents.

What Comes Next

Air Liquide isn't stopping with the pilot. The company is already moving forward with the ENHANCE project, which will scale up the technology significantly. This next phase will combine a large-scale ammonia cracker with an innovative hydrogen liquefier in the same industrial basin, building on the operational experience and technical learnings from the Antwerp pilot.

The European Commission has awarded Air Liquide a €110 million grant from the European Innovation Fund to support ENHANCE. The project aims to retrofit an existing hydrogen production unit to use renewable ammonia instead of natural gas, cutting CO₂ emissions by more than 300,000 tons annually.

By 2050, the renewable and low-carbon ammonia market could reach 200 million tons per year. Air Liquide's technology positions the company to capture significant value as that market develops. The ability to offer end-to-end solutions from ammonia import terminals to cracking facilities gives them a competitive advantage in building out the infrastructure for a global hydrogen economy.

The Bigger Picture

This breakthrough arrives at a moment when the hydrogen industry needs it most. While renewable hydrogen production costs are falling, the transport challenge has remained a stubborn barrier to scaling the market. Air Liquide's ammonia cracking technology removes that barrier at industrial scale.

The implications extend beyond hydrogen. As industries worldwide commit to net-zero targets, having proven pathways to access low-carbon hydrogen becomes essential. Manufacturing, chemicals, steel production, and heavy transport all need hydrogen solutions that work economically and logistically. Ammonia cracking provides both.

The successful commissioning of this pilot plant marks the moment when global hydrogen trade shifted from theoretical possibility to engineering reality. The infrastructure needed to move hydrogen across oceans now exists, it's been tested at scale, and it's ready to deploy wherever ammonia import terminals and hydrogen demand meet.