Hycamite TCD Technologies has opened its methane splitting plant for low-carbon hydrogen production near its headquarters in Kokkola in southwest Finland.

The ‘Customer Sample Facility’ (CSF) plant, slated as Europe’s largest of its type, utilises Hycamite’s proprietary methane pyrolysis technology, which decomposes large volumes of methane into its component elements, hydrogen and carbon, while avoiding the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The technology is stated to require only 13% of the energy needed to produce hydrogen via electrolysis.

Moreover, using a methane feedstock, whether from geologic natural gas, biomethane or synthetic natural gas, production can be scaled up rapidly.

“Hycamite’s CSF demonstrates the viability of the new methane splitting technology,” says CEO Laura Rahikka.

She adds that the company intends to open several other methane splitting plants in other parts of the world in the future.

Hycamite uses an innovative carbon capture, utilisation and storage technology to capture the carbon in a solid form and provide it to customers as graphite and other high value industrial-quality products.

This low-carbon graphite can then replace traditionally produced synthetic graphite, with a key application expected to be in batteries for electric vehicles – one of the main drivers of the high graphite demand.

The new CSF is near the Hycamite headquarters and the small test facility in Kokkola Industrial Park (KIP), where northern Europe’s largest ecosystem of the inorganic chemical industry is located.

Once fully operational, the nominal capacity of Hycamite’s CSF is planned to reach 2,000t of low-carbon hydrogen and 6,000t of high-quality carbon annually.

The decarbonisation capacity of the CSF can be up to 18,000t of CO2 per year when liquefied natural gas (LNG) is used.

With biomethane, the produced hydrogen is carbon negative.