Chemical company INEOS announced that it has completed a £30 million (USD$40.4 million) investment at its Hull manufacturing site, converting the facility to run on hydrogen instead of natural gas, resulting in a 75% reduction in carbon emissions.

Based on the east coast of the UK, the INEOS Acetyls business in Hull is the largest producer of acetic acid, acetic anhydride and ethyl acetate in Europe. Acetic acid is a broadly utilized chemical, used in the production of food preservatives, and to make goods such as ink, pharmaceuticals, household cleaning products, textiles, paints, packaging and many more items, with the reduction in carbon emissions of the plant contributing to helping manufacturers address their own supply chain emissions.

Hydrogen is viewed as one of the key building blocks of the transition to a cleaner energy future, particularly for industrial and transport sectors with difficult to abate emissions, in which renewable energy solutions such as wind or solar are less practical, although sourcing hydrogen produced without generating GHG emissions in the process is challenging,  as the vast majority of hydrogen is extracted using fossil fuels, which create pollutants and GHG emissions.

According to INEOS, the hydrogen now used at the site is produced as a co-product from existing manufacturing processes, with the company adding that it believes that the model can be replicated across the industry.

INEOS has a company-wide GHG management system in place to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, and the company said that the investment forms part of its wider strategy to decarbonize its operations across the UK and Europe. The company added that the Hull project is one of several decarbonization projects underway across its sites.

David Brooks, CEO INEOS Acetyls, said:

“Like most chemical businesses in the UK, we are working hard to compete in global markets while facing some of the highest energy and carbon costs in the world. This investment is another step in our plans to supply the UK and European markets with highly reliable and low carbon products.”