New Hydrogen Plant for Perdue Farms' Soybean Oil Facility

A new hydrogen plant is being built by Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Allentown, PA), to supply hydrogen gas to Perdue Farms, Inc.'s soybean oil processing facility. The modular, steam methane reformer hydrogen plant will be used to make soybean oil, produced by Perdue's soybean crushing facilities, into a more stable and suitable form for sale to producers of margarine, shortening and confectionery products.

"This arrangement capitalizes on Air Products' experience in working at the customer's site, and provides our customer with a hands-off approach so its personnel can focus their efforts on soybean oil processing", said Florio Young, development manager for Air Products' Chemical and Process Industries Division.

All of the equipment for the new on-site hydrogen plant is being designed by Kinetics Technology International, SPA (KTI). KTI, SPA is part of the KTI Group, a leading manufacturer of hydrogen production facilities. Air Products and KTI have an alliance to cooperate on hydrogen opportunities throughout the world. In addition to providing Perdue with hydrogen, Air Products also has a PRISM Pressure Swing Adsorption System at the Salisbury site which supplies Perdue with high-purity nitrogen to blanket and protect the processed soybean oil from oxidation.

Air Products offers a broad line of hydrogen supply options, including gaseous and liquid merchant hydrogen, pipeline supply and dedicated on-site plants.

Perdue Farms, headquartered in Salisbury, MD, is the largest integrated poultry producer in the Northeast and the third largest in the United States.

Edited by Pam Ahlberg