MechChem Africa September-October 2021

⎪ Cover story ⎪

ment, substantially reducing time required onsite. This saves construction time and costs – and this is also true inSouthAfrica and Africa, whereweather oftenplays adisruptive role,” Sofijanic informs MechChem Africa. In addition, labour issues are more pre- dictable in shop floor environments, where different disciplines such as insulation, paint- ing, testing and shot blasting capabilities are more easily planned for and accessible. There is seldom a need to wait for a specialist to be mobilised onto an off-plot site, she adds. Govender cites a local example where a plant had to be built in the heart of a gasifica - tion area with dangerous concentrations of phenolics in the surrounding atmosphere. “It was unsafe for any worker to be in that environment for more than 30%of a 12-hour shift. Everyone had towear a full facemask at all timesandnobodycouldbeonsite for longer than four hours at a time. “The solution was that we immediately adoptedamodular approach,whichmassively improved the construction schedule and, of course, raised theendquality levels –because it is very hard to produce great quality con- struction work while sweating behind a full face mask,” he notes. While modular plant design is far from novel – tk Uhde has long history in modular chlor-alkali plants, for example– the company now has the expertise to design and replace existing stick-built sections of plant with purpose built modules. “This is a much rarer skill that offers operators a more cost effec- tive and reliable opportunity to upgrade and modify older plants,” Govender says. In Africa, where the availability of contac- tors andexpertise is scarceand thebuildoften has to be done in remote areas with poor infrastructure, plant modularisation is the way to go,” he assures; adding that tk Uhde chlor-alkali plants, which electrolyse sodium chloridesolutions toproducechlorine, sodium hydroxide (caustic) and sodium hypochlorite (bleach), are now being installed globally. These are all pre-assembled, tested, contai- nerised, shipped to site and re-assembled. Green hydrogen According to Eve, the advent of Green Technology, including the world class manu- factureof gH 2 (greenhydrogen) has leveraged Uhde’s state of the art electrolyser technol-

Modular plant has to be purpose designed with structural integrity so it can be safely and easily transported, placed and connected-up onsite in a ‘plug-and-play’ manner.

ogy, originally developed for themanufacture of chlor-alkali products. The application of this technology in the green technology environment places it firmly at the heart of future business. “Our forward-looking focus is around green hydrogen and associated downstream technologies: green methanol, synthetic natural gas and green ammonia. We are now part of the Green Hydrogen Partnership (GHP) and working hard to transform the South African economy from being a fuel import dependent company to an exporting country – and the potential for South Africa is huge,” says Neville Eve. Senior sales engineer forGreenHydrogen & Chemicals, Nithesh Mohun, explains: “In mitigation against climate change, countries areunder increasingpressure todecarbonise. The production of green hydrogen using Uhde technology can be 100% CO 2 -free. All we need is a source of sea-, grey- or river- water.We first purify thewater using reverse osmosis, before channelling the water to electrolysers, which ideally use renewable electrical power from a solar PV, wind or hydro powerplant to split thewatermolecule into close to medical grade oxygen (O 2 ) and pure hydrogen (H 2 ). “Using the green hydrogen as feedstock, we can then produce green ammonia, which has use as a green fuel for marine vessels, fertilisers or explosives. In addition, we can harvest carbon from the CO 2 emissions from traditional fossil-burning plants and, by com- bining it with green hydrogen, produce green

methanol (CH 3 OH) or synthetic natural gas, which is very close to methane (CH 4 ). Using green hydrogen as the starting point offers immense potential for the downstreamgreen derivative products value chain,”Mohun tells MechChem Africa With respect to costs of hydrogen produc- tion, Mohun estimates that, even with the cost of green-power factored in, the cost of hydrogenproductionwill reachcostparitywith traditional carbon-basedsteamreformingpro- cesseswithinthenext fewyears. “Ourhydrogen electrolysertechnologyusingtraditionalpower is already cost competitivewith steamreform- ing processes in the cost range of US$1.8/kg to $2.4/kg.Withtheadoptionofrenewablepower, webelievethetotal costswill fall intothis range within thenext four tofive years,” addsMohun. “Aswell asbeing leaders in large scalegreen hydrogen production and derivatives, we are part of a large global organisation with local experience and capabilities that enable us to be very flexible with respect to the delivery of brownfield and greenfield projects, from small to very large,” says Govender. “We combine modern solutions with emerging and existing plant in a unique, flexible and locally appropri - ate way, as long-term partners to local owners and operators. “thyssenkrupp Uhde has a role to play across the entire lifecycle of process plant in Africa. We have been around for a 100 years and in Southern Africa for more than 60 years, so we are not about to disappear,” he concludes. q

Key team members of tk Uhde SA: Rajend Govender, Neville Eve, Ranka Sofijanic and Nithesh Mohun.

September-October 2021 • MechChem Africa ¦ 5