LNK Energies develops onboard hydrogen release for fleets seeking a diesel alternative
LNK Energies is developing a way for heavy-duty trucks to carry hydrogen in a liquid and release it onboard, rather than store the gas under high pressure. Its intended customers are operators looking for an alternative to diesel without replacing the familiar liquid-fuel model. The company has built a laboratory prototype. A larger installation in a commercial truck remains a plan, not an operating deployment. The approach could reduce a fleet’s reliance on high-pressure hydrogen storage, but it also creates a need to collect and reprocess the spent carrier.
A different way to carry hydrogen
The liquid in LNK’s proposed system is a liquid organic hydrogen carrier. It holds hydrogen chemically until a device called a hydrogen release unit extracts the gas as needed. The hydrogen can then feed an engine or a fuel cell, while the used liquid returns to the vehicle’s tank.
The distinction matters because storing hydrogen gas on a truck can require bulky, high-pressure tanks. LNK’s leaders told TechCrunch that releasing it onboard is intended to avoid that compression step. If it works at truck scale, that choice could make a liquid-based fueling approach more attractive to fleets that already operate diesel vehicles.
From the lab toward a truck
The idea draws on MIT research into using engine exhaust heat to help release hydrogen from a carrier. A 2023 MIT report identified Sayandeep Biswas, now LNK’s CEO, as a member of that research team. The researchers said a truck-sized release system would need further engineering and optimization.