A technical guide to liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) — binding hydrogen to a stable liquid molecule at ambient pressure, moving it through existing tanker and pipeline infrastructure, and releasing it again through catalytic dehydrogenation at the point of use.
Compressed or liquefied hydrogen is hard to move: it needs cryogenic cooling or extreme pressure and leaks through seals that hold heavier molecules fine. LOHC technology sidesteps that entirely by chemically binding hydrogen to a carrier oil that behaves like an ordinary liquid fuel at room temperature — the cost is an added hydrogenation step to load it and a dehydrogenation step to release it, but the payoff is compatibility with tankers, storage tanks and pipelines that already exist.