Development of large-scale hydrogen liquefaction processes from 1898 to 2009

This paper presents a review of the development of large-scale hydrogen liquefaction processes throughout the world from 1898 to 2009. First, there is a concise literature review including numerous past, present, and future designs given such as the first hydrogen liquefaction device, long time ago simple theoretical processes, today's actual plants with efficiencies 20–30%, a list of the capacity and location of every hydrogen liquefaction plant in the world, and some modern more efficient proposed conceptual plants with efficiencies 40–50%. After that, further information about the development and improvement potential of future large-scale liquid hydrogen liquefaction plants is given. It is found that every current plant is based on the pre-cooled Claude system, which is still the same as was 50 years ago with little improvement. Methods to resolve the challenges of the future plants include proposing completely new configurations and efficient systems coupled with improved efficiencies of the main system components such as compressors, expanders, and heat exchangers. Finally, a summary and comparison of the process efficiencies are described, including a newly proposed Multi-component Refrigerant (MR) system being developed by NTNU and SINTEF Energy Research AS.