Hydrogen under pressure

00:00:05: Hello everybody and welcome to a new episode of our industrial podcast by Bosch Rexald.

00:00:10: My name is Robert Wieber and it's a pleasure to talk to Marius Plingen from Bosch Rexald.

00:00:15: Marius, welcome to the podcast.

00:00:17: Yes, hello.

00:00:17: Hi, Robert.

00:00:18: It's your first podcast, but not the last, I think, because we're talking about a huge topic about hydrogen.

00:00:25: And we already recorded an episode on hydrogen, but we can tell a lot more.

00:00:30: But before we do that, please introduce yourself briefly to the listeners.

00:00:34: Yes.

00:00:34: Thank you, Robert.

00:00:35: So hello, my name is Marius Plingen.

00:00:38: And yeah, I'm part of Rex Road since four years.

00:00:42: And yeah, I'm responsible for the sales initiative hydrogen here in Rex Road.

00:00:48: And therefore I'm the head of sector sales hydrogen.

00:00:53: We already recorded an episode on the hydrogen market, a very dynamic market.

00:00:59: A lot of change is happening in the market.

00:01:01: Is it still like this?

00:01:03: Is the market still like this?

00:01:05: Yes, so generally speaking, also knowing what you discussed in the last podcast, and I can only recommend to hear it again for the listeners out there.

00:01:13: So yes, we still see a very regional development of the hydrogen market worldwide.

00:01:20: So depending on which region you are picking out, it can be completely different in terms of what kind of technology might be needed for hydrogen infrastructure in our case.

00:01:31: And yeah, so therefore for us.

00:01:34: It's still a dynamic development, but we are ready with our technology open portfolio.

00:01:41: Okay.

00:01:42: Today we want to talk a little bit more about use cases, about gaseous states, use cases and liquid state use cases.

00:01:50: Can you share maybe two or three examples where Bosch Rex Road components solutions play a crucial role when it comes to hydrogen and why?

00:02:04: Yes.

00:02:05: So first, I would like to introduce.

00:02:08: So if we talk about hydrogen and also in the scope of Rex Road, we talk about the hydrogen infrastructure and especially or specifically the infrastructure for the hydrogen mobility.

00:02:20: So we talk about trucks, cars, whatever kind of application you can think of in a mobility context that runs with hydrogen.

00:02:29: And now if you talk about this ability in hydrogen, you can differentiate between gaseous infrastructures, so refueling stations for vehicles that run on gaseous hydrogen or you can differentiate with regarding of liquid hydrogen.

00:02:47: And Rexroad and our portfolio that we have developed for this market is based on especially this differentiation.

00:02:54: So for the gaseous infrastructure, we have our hydraulic drives.

00:03:00: for compression systems that we sell directly to compression OEMs.

00:03:05: And if we talk about liquid infrastructure, we have a complete turnkey cryo pump station.

00:03:12: It's a turnkey solution that we sell directly to a refueling station builder or integrator.

00:03:19: Let's stay with the cryo pump you mentioned.

00:03:21: Can you go a little bit in details about the technique behind the cryo pump?

00:03:27: Yes.

00:03:29: Basically this cryo pump consists of two or cryo pump stations.

00:03:33: We have to say it's a complete solution.

00:03:37: So you have you have a Pump, which is basically a compression unit and you have drives for it.

00:03:44: You have control systems for it.

00:03:45: So power electronics

00:03:46: and so on.

00:03:47: So

00:03:48: everything most of it.

00:03:49: Yeah.

00:03:50: Yeah.

00:03:51: So most of it by Bosch Rex Road and integrated in a compact solution.

00:03:55: And now what is inside?

00:03:57: So there are two.

00:03:59: different cryo pumps inside stage one and stage two.

00:04:03: We call them.

00:04:04: the first stage is responsible for the compression of liquid hydrogen as an input up to sixteen bar in a liquid state.

00:04:15: So that's our stage one that feeds the liquid hydrogen compressed.

00:04:20: We call it then subcooled liquid hydrogen into the stage two.

00:04:24: But why do I need the second stage?

00:04:26: Okay, so the second stage we have integrated into that system to be able to also refuel in a gaseous state.

00:04:36: So it's a combination.

00:04:39: Our cryo pump station can refuel either subcooled liquid hydrogen or cryo compressed hydrogen.

00:04:45: we call it or compressed hydrogen in a gaseous state.

00:04:49: Yeah.

00:04:50: And

00:04:51: why is that so important?

00:04:52: to have it combined?

00:04:53: So We all know that there are different perspectives on what is the best solution for the truck, especially if you talk to different truck OEMs.

00:05:04: So there are trucks that run on gaseous hydrogen on board, or there are trucks that could also run on liquid hydrogen on board, especially for the trucks that have long distances to travel.

00:05:15: And yeah, so therefore, as I said, we develop a technology open portfolio.

00:05:20: With our technology development partner, we said we want to be open for both use cases because that's the only option to also realize the potential of to scale up.

00:05:33: We can also offer to customers if they solely want to build to liquid refueling station, then we can also just use the stage one.

00:05:42: But if you want to have the combination, you need both.

00:05:45: because you need to feed this stage two with compressed liquid hydrogen.

00:05:49: That's that's physically necessary for the process.

00:05:52: The combination is crucial for that.

00:05:54: Right.

00:05:54: Exactly.

00:05:54: So thermodynamics.

00:05:56: Yeah.

00:05:56: Yeah.

00:05:57: Okay.

00:05:57: That's the reason.

00:05:58: Can you go a little bit more in details when it comes to components that they're built in the cryo pump?

00:06:04: Yes.

00:06:05: So so maybe if it's okay, I would like to take a step back again to our portfolio for gaseous compression systems where we have our hydraulic drives, as I said, that we can combine with the cylinders hydraulic cylinders to drive compression head, for example.

00:06:22: So we are market leaders in industrial hydraulics.

00:06:25: And with that know how and expertise inside our company, we came up with or developed products and components specifically for the use case inside compression systems for hydrogen.

00:06:39: So the factors that we look for in a development is efficiency.

00:06:42: robustness, compactness, these kind of things, serviceability.

00:06:47: These are very important factors to be successful as a technology provider.

00:06:51: So we have our several hydraulic actuators in the smallest version, a very compact that we, for example, use for forklift refueling, always in combination with the sold by our compressor OEM by our customer.

00:07:07: And then we have, for example, the CitroCore.

00:07:11: that is a specifically designed power unit that is highly efficient to drive a compressor with a higher power input.

00:07:17: We talk about roughly sixty to seventy kilowatts there.

00:07:21: And then if you talk about the cryo pump station that you were referring to, there we have our servo hydraulic pump modules installed inside several of them actually.

00:07:31: that we also use, for example, in press applications.

00:07:34: So it's a really mature market.

00:07:37: How

00:07:37: easy is it to transfer it from a press use case to a pump?

00:07:42: So if we talk about hydraulics for us, of course, that's our core know how.

00:07:48: So the servo hydraulic pump modules that I'm talking to or referring to here.

00:07:53: So a combination between a hydraulic pump and a servo motor.

00:07:57: I think that's the key here.

00:07:59: And what did you learn?

00:08:01: in this process, in these new projects, maybe also for the existing components, existing technology.

00:08:10: So as I said for us, it's the efficiency is one of the major success factors, technology-wise in hydrogen applications.

00:08:18: So what we definitely learned also together with our customers is how to design a highly efficient hydraulic drive system for a pumping or a compressor.

00:08:30: application.

00:08:32: So that is something we definitely learned.

00:08:34: And also, as I said, we learned together with our customers.

00:08:38: So it's very important to us to have also good relationships here and to develop together.

00:08:44: It's about robustness.

00:08:46: So yeah, design the products and the final solution as robust as possible.

00:08:53: How will other branches benefit from your results or from your from your research you did?

00:09:00: So generally we actually we all

00:09:02: your colleagues in different parts

00:09:04: we benefit now because we are a new branch for us for x-road.

00:09:09: So we benefit a lot from the development and the know-how that has been built up in other branches as presses.

00:09:18: Is

00:09:18: there back channel too?

00:09:19: Yes, so anytime that you or every time that you talk about or think about a hydraulic system that is based on a closed loop and the servo hydraulic system, then, of course, we have to know how and build to realize that application.

00:09:35: So that can be in different applications, but usually you would have to look for an application that is depending on high energy efficiency and robustness.

00:09:44: So, yeah.

00:09:46: Can you share, please, from your point of view, what are the, let's say, three main USPs of your solution?

00:09:55: Yeah.

00:09:57: Hydraulically speaking, as I said, we have already developed as much for efficiency as possible.

00:10:04: If you talk about the cryopump station where we compress hydrogen with our system, there also we look for the highest efficiency as possible.

00:10:14: One key factor here is, for example, boil-off effect to minimize that.

00:10:19: So the boil-off effect in really rough terms here is basically that If you use liquid hydrogen as an input in your process, and liquid hydrogen is very cold usually, maybe a little bit under pressure, but still very cold, and it's very close to the point where it will boil again, so where it transitions into gaseous state.

00:10:42: Okay, and you don't want that.

00:10:44: And you don't want that?

00:10:45: Because

00:10:45: you have a liquid engine.

00:10:48: Exactly, or not even, you want to maintain liquid as much as possible for your process inside the pump.

00:10:55: for robustness reasons and yeah ceiling reasons.

00:11:00: So that's why why it's really important to look for how much energy do you have as an input from outside your system into the cryo pump.

00:11:10: So in that sense, you want to minimize the boil off.

00:11:13: So good hydrogen wants to transition into gaseous hydrogen almost at any time.

00:11:18: Okay.

00:11:19: So any energy that it sees we'll use to transition into a gaseous state.

00:11:24: Okay.

00:11:25: This was the first USP, second USP.

00:11:28: Second USP, I would say is the robustness and also potential to scale up really fast due to the fact that it's based on industrial technology that we already know and have developed as the market leader.

00:11:43: I mentioned it, the servo hydraulics, the drive system is very robust.

00:11:47: It's industrial grade solutions.

00:11:49: Exactly.

00:11:50: Third USP.

00:11:52: Third USP where we have found out together with our development partner is basically we integrated the whole cryo pump system into one station that is really small in comparison to other compression systems for refueling stations.

00:12:07: So it uses a lot of less space and during operation due to high efficiency and so on and also due to this size and the scale that we used.

00:12:18: as a use case.

00:12:19: So to be able to refuel a lot of hydrogen in a very small amount of time to be as close as to the diesel use case in commercial vehicles today, you can say that you can save a lot of costs due to that.

00:12:33: you do not need as much components like storage systems in between.

00:12:37: You can directly pump and fill into the truck.

00:12:40: That's the third big advantage of

00:12:43: our system.

00:12:43: You want to add some one USB or you're fine with that.

00:12:47: I'm fine.

00:12:47: Okay.

00:12:48: So, free USPs.

00:12:51: And can you please share once again, because you mentioned at the beginning it was a little bit crypto.

00:12:57: Who is your customer at the end?

00:12:59: Yeah.

00:12:59: And you have different customers, different branches, different perspectives, right?

00:13:04: Yes.

00:13:04: So you're totally right.

00:13:06: So for our hydraulic drive systems, especially if we talk about the gadgets, hydrogen market, there our direct customers would be compression OEMs that would use our drive systems and combine them and integrate them into their compression system.

00:13:23: If you now talk about liquid hydrogen infrastructure market, there we have our third solution.

00:13:29: That's

00:13:29: a cryo pump,

00:13:30: right?

00:13:30: Exactly.

00:13:30: The cryo pump station that we can directly sell as the heart of a refueling station that is based on liquid hydrogen as an input.

00:13:39: directly to the station builder or integrator, depending always on the project structure.

00:13:44: Okay.

00:13:45: So Marius, what is on your agenda for the next three months when it comes to hydrogen?

00:13:50: So my agenda for the next few months is definitely to cooperate and communicate as much as possible with our customers and also with our internal sales organization to be focused on the regions as much as possible.

00:14:07: So that you have the region for region, you have the approach for that.

00:14:12: That is my focus for the next few months to work on that.

00:14:17: Yeah.

00:14:18: I wish you all the best for that.

00:14:19: Keep fingers crossed for you and your solution.

00:14:22: Thanks a lot, Marius.

00:14:23: It was a pleasure.

00:14:23: Thank you, Rowan.

00:14:24: Thank you.