Record in China: 10,000 km traveled by three cars fueled with hydrogen provided by Air Liquide

Air Liquide was the exclusive partner for hydrogen solutions in the “2014 Innovation March” that ended last month in China, consisting of a 10,000 km roadshow sponsored by SAIC Motor Corp. featuring new energy vehicles.

Started off in Shanghai and ended in Kunming, the 52 days long roadshow crossed China from North to South, and East to West, passing through 64 cities in 15 provinces.

During the tour, Air Liquide provided a standard mobile hydrogen filling station that supplied a total of 3,000 m³ of hydrogen, fueling the three hydrogen-powered cars 128 times. The longest distance driven per car in a day was 588 km and the station fuelled the cars at elevations of up to 2,000 meters. Test drives were also successfully conducted at an elevation of 4,000 meters in Tibet.

Hydrogen is one of the solutions for providing clean energy: used in a fuel cell, hydrogen combines with oxygen from the air to produce electricity with water as the only byproduct. Mastering the entire hydrogen industrial chain from production to storage, to distribution to the end user, the Air Liquide Group is actively involved in setting up the hydrogen energy industry. To date, it has delivered more than 60 hydrogen filling stations worldwide. Those stations have the capacity to refuel hydrogen vehicles in less than 5 minutes. In addition, in accordance with its Blue Hydrogen initiative, Air Liquide is moving towards a gradual decarbonisation of its hydrogen production dedicated to energy applications. In practical terms, Air Liquide is committed to producing at least 50% of the hydrogen necessary for these applications through carbon-free processes by 2020.