How Industrial Gases are Decarbonising Healthcare
Healthcare systems cause more than 4% of global CO2 emissions and the sector is looking for ways to decrease this. One way, is through its use of gas.
MRI scanners, anaesthesia and cryosurgery all use gas, in sometimes life-critical ways. The global industrial gases market is valued at around US$100bn and is directly responsible for millions of jobs - and lives.
Air Products is a world leading industrial gas manufacturer, founded in 1940 in the USA. It has more than 250,000 customers and 750 production facilities.
Suzanne Lowe, Vice President and General Manager for the United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel and Italy at Air Products, has over 30 years of experience with Air Products. She has seen both the industry and business expand and here, she tells us more.
Why should we decarbonise the industrial gas sector?
It’s no secret that industrial gas manufacturing has traditionally been an energy-intensive sector.
We have a responsibility to tackle our emissions and we have put in place a specific goal to reduce the intensity of Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 CO₂ emissions by a third by 2030 versus our 2023 baseline.
We’re investing heavily in digitisation to decarbonise our own operations. To date, we have digitised 70 plants, including our Air Separation Units (ASUs) at Hull, Carrington, Didcot and a range of customer plants too.
We’re also investing to convert 2,000 of our vehicles to hydrogen fuel cell trucks by 2030.
We’ve announced plans to retrofit an existing hydrogen production plant in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with a carbon capture and CO₂ treatment facility.
This will be the biggest blue hydrogen plant in Europe once operational and it will also serve UK customers. The carbon capture retrofit will allow us to more than halve our CO₂ emissions in the port of Rotterdam.
We’re also a critical lynch pin and supplier to the UK manufacturing sector, recently valued at a staggering £224bn (US$293.2bn) by MAKE UK.
This means that, as a sector, we have a significant opportunity and responsibility to generate a cleaner future by supporting the UK’s drive to reach net zero by 2050.
How are you helping to decarbonise the manufacturing sector?
We have a portfolio of sustainability-enhancing offerings for manufacturers. We are working with heavy industry customers including glass, metals and ceramics manufacturers to decarbonise their operations, through the use of oxy-fuel technology and through digital innovations.
For example, we use technologies like Gastrak and Integra e2, which track and reduce gas consumption during welding processes.
Our digital twin study, that we developed with Tandom Metallurgical Group, calculates when the aluminium inside their furnace has reached tapping temperature, providing a way to predict when the melting portion of the cycle is complete.
Our client was able to improve yield, reduce CO₂ emissions by 15% as well as make energy gains by the same amount.
Blue and green hydrogen are playing an increasingly important role in decarbonising hard to abate sectors such as heavy industry including steel-making and construction.
As the world’s largest hydrogen supplier, we’ve committed to invest US$15bn by 2027 in energy transition megaprojects globally.
Future projects include plans to build, own and operate a renewable hydrogen facility. This world scale facility would convert imported renewable ammonia to green hydrogen which can then decarbonise industry and heavy-duty transport across the country. The facility could produce up to 300MW of hydrogen.
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