The chemical industry, as it is known nowadays, owes much to alchemists and chemists. Alchemists were puzzled by the search for the philosopher’s stone, for the elixir of life, and their surveys tried to discover how to transform any metal into gold. Chemists played a vital role in the industrial development in Germany from carbon-derived chemistry, carbochemistry, up to the Second World War. From that moment, the North American chemical industry, developed by Chemical Engineers, gave rise to a huge range of substances derived from oil and natural gas, produced in large and continuous process plants, named the petrochemical industry.
Petroleum chemistry fostered unprecedented development in industry worldwide. Plastic, synthetic or artificial threads, elastomers, detergents, pigments, paints and coatings are part of modern man’s daily life. The application of increasingly advanced technologies, the achievement of higher productivity rates every day, and the magnitude of integrated industrial complexes promotes development by generating the wealth of modern nations.
The recent concerns regarding the reduction of carbonic gas emissions of and the atmosphere contamination, responsible for global warming, are once more changing the course of the chemical industry, abandoning the use of coal as power source, and replacing oil and natural gas with other raw materials. Thus, instead of using methane as source to produce hydrogen, they use water. Hydrogen is obtained through electrolysis, and the electrical power used should be from clean sources, such as wind, solar or hydro power.
Thus, hydrogen begins to be produced on an industrial scale, using water, wind and sun as raw materials, known as green hydrogen. The term “grey hydrogen” is also adopted for that produced from natural gas, and “blue hydrogen”, when obtained from natural gas but with carbon capture and storage. Hydrogen is the lightest substance in nature and probably the most abundant in the universe because it is one of the nebula’s major components. Therefore, grey hydrogen is the most industrially used and the proposal put forward by the world today, which is changing thechemical industry’s course, is to replace it with green hydrogen.
The first industrial-scale manufacture of green hydrogen began with the start-up of Iberdrola’s plant operation in Spain, last May. Hundreds of plants are being designed and built worldwide, thus contributing to environmental decontamination. In addition to such motivation, Europe’s countries have an additional reason to promote this change, since they use natural gas as the main input to generate heat and electricity, and because it is imported in large volumes from Russia through extensive gas pipelines. Moreover, the war established between the largest countries in Europe, Russia and Ukraine, is accelerating such change so the Europeans do not depend on the Russian gas supply, establishing a race to install these factories.
Thanks to Henri Armand Slezynger’s pioneering spirit, Unigel is installing, in Bahia Camaçari Industrial Pole, Brazil’s first green hydrogen plant. In the location chosen for its installation, there will be no lack of air, sun, or water, notably the latter, extracted from the excellent quality aquifer, which has already attracted mineral water bottlers and soda and beer plants. The plant should start operation in 2023, has an estimated investment of US$ 120 million, and will have the capacity of 10 thousand tons/year in the first phase, reaching 40 thousand tons/year by 2025. It will be, at the time, the largest green hydrogen plant in the world, far surpassing Iberdrola’s Spanish plant, which operates at a capacity of three thousand tons/year.
The new plant will use technology from Thyssenkrup, a company that will supply three electrolyzers of 20 MW each. They are being built in Nucera (Italy), and will be transported already assembled and testedin 48 containers. The wind generators with capacity of 240 MW will be supplied by Casa dos Ventos, in partnership with Unigel. The 10 thousand tons of green hydrogen will be transformed, in the first phase, into 60 thousand tons of green ammonia, and the 40 thousand tons, in the second phase, will be converted into 240 thousand tons of such gas.
Ammonia, already produced by Unigel in Camaçari, is synthesized by additing nitrogen extracted from theatmospheric air, also inexhaustible as water, wind, and sun. Ammonia has been deemed the most economical way to store and transport green hydrogen, but it can also be used in other applications, such as fertilizers production , and can be directly consumed as automotive and navigation fuel.
At the Unigel site, besides ammonia, urea is also produced, being responsible for part of the provision of nitrogen fertilizers indispensable to agribusiness, which currently pulls forward, with all vigor, our country’s economy. In the same industrial park, ammonia is already used to produce acrylonitrile, methyl methacrylate, and ammonium sulfate. This last one shall have its production capacity increased to 400 thousand tons/year when Unigel concludes the construction of the sulfuric acid plant also in Camaçari. If the wind keeps blowing, if the sun keeps shining, if the water from Camaçari spring remains protected, and if the nitrogen in our air remains abundant, with this new plant, we shall undoubtedly be building an excellent instrument of generation of wealth, labor, income, and profuse source to sponsor education, health, safety, and environmental protection, among other benefits which we cannot forgo to live in harmony and with dignity.
Among the facilities operated by Unigel at the Camaçari site, there is a 30 km pipeline for transportating ammonia to Aratu-Candeias Port, where a refrigerated tank (-33°C) is installed with a capacity for 20 thousand tons of product.. Special pumps for vessels loading/unloading are part of the port facilities, which can handle one thousand tons/hour of ammonia. Currently, the surplus of ammonia produced is exported to other countries and traded in the local market. There is only another similar tank in the country, besides this one, at the Port of Santos, being a critical logistic support facility to handle this industrial input.
Unigel's green hydrogen produced not integrated into the local manufacture of other products may be sold for use as fuel for heat and power generation and as feedstock. There are dozens of substances, which on the one hand use ammonia as a precursor and, on the other hand, synthesis gas (CO + H2) and methanol start another huge chain of chemical products, pointing to the possibility of assembling integrated industrial complexes. Methanol, to reinforce the quote, used in the transesterification of vegetable oils, a step in the biodiesel manufacturing process, is imported 100%. It is worth noting that green hydrogen, in addition to being a noble automotive fuel, may sell for a lower price than gasoline and diesel oil.
Unigel initiative gains ground nationally, with the Conselho Nacional de Política Energética (CNPE) (National Energy Policy Council) proposed and created by the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), the Programa Nacional do Hidrogênio (PNH2) (National Hydrogen Program) and its respective governance. In turn, the Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis (ANP) (Brazilian Agency of Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuel) has created a work group to debate and define the strategy to follow, presenting proposals and products, and subsidizing the Agency’s representation in the Comitê Gestor do PNH2 (PNH2 Managing Committee). Everything suggests considering this initiative as a driver to restart the Brazilian chemical industry.
Adary Oliveira graduated in Chemical Engineer from Federal University of Bahia (1966), holds a master’s degree in business administration from Getúlio Vargas Foundation - SP (1978), and is PhD in Territorial Planning and Regional Development - University of Barcelona (2004). He is currently a director at LTA Consultoria Empresarial Ltda. He has held the positions of general diretor at Ibametro; director at Insumos Básicos S.A. Financiamento e Participações – Fibase; director at BNDES Participações S.A. – BNDESPar; presidente at Nitrocarbono S.A.; and managing diretor at Companhia Petroquímica Camaçari S.A..