Air Liquide, a leading multinational company specialising in gases, technologies and services for industry and healthcare, has plants in Spain and Portugal that provide it with a large production capacity in the sector. Air Liquide’s industrial gases production portfolio includes hydrogen.
One of the projects Montrel is developing with hydrogen is the identification of tanks using RFID for Air Liquide, which has extensive experience in the entire hydrogen value chain: production, storage and distribution.
This project has been divided into several phases:
- In the initial phase, which will begin at the Puertollano plant and then continue at the Estarreja (Portugal) and Coruña plants, hydrogen refuelling management will be carried out. Initially, once the refuelling has been carried out by the DCS (Distributed Control System or plant control system), the driver can retrieve the result of the refuelling through our touch terminal, which is communicated with the DCS. From there, our touch system can generate all the circulation documentation.
- In the next phase, which will also be installed in these three plants, the following operations will be added:
- Automatic identification of the vehicle by means of microwave tags suitable for classified areas, prior to physical loading.
- Launch of the cargo by an order sent to the DCS.
- The subsequent retrieval of the results, (as in the initial phase), all through our touch system.
- In the third phase, the entire loading management process will continue to be carried out from our touch-screen system, which means that the entire flow of operations required for upstream and downstream loading management will be managed like the other products that Montrel has been managing for years (N2, O2, CO2, etc.) at the aforementioned Air Liquide. plants. This phase is also planned for implementation in 2022.
Ultimately, at each stage, the level of load management is increased and detailed information is provided, with the physical hydrogen load being carried out by the DCS.
The three phases indicated above have a positive impact on the optimisation of resources compared to the management of this process in Air Liquide’s plants with regard to hydrogen refuelling.