Sun Metals aims to be world’s first to produce ‘green’ zinc

The world’s first heavy vehicle hydrogen trucks could be operating in Townsville late next year after an agreement between a US-based company and the Sun Metals zinc refinery.

The world’s first heavy vehicle hydrogen trucks could be operating in Townsville late next year after an agreement between a US-based company and the Sun Metals zinc refinery.

Refinery group subsidiary Ark Energy Corporation has signed the Heads of Agreement with Hyzon Motors to acquire five 140-tonne hydrogen trucks.

Hyzon is a leading supplier of hydrogen fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles, although in arrangements yet to be finalised, its fuel cell technology could be installed into cab and chassis glider kits in Australia.

Ark Energy Corporation CEO Daniel Kim.

Ark Energy CEO Daniel Kim said Sun Metals aimed to be the first refinery in the world to produce “green” zinc and to change its existing fleet of 27 diesel trucks to hydrogen.

But it needed to help “crack the nut” of decarbonising heavy transport, he said.

“When we scoured the world for fuel cell trucks, we found that Hyzon Motors was the only hydrogen mobility company that could manufacture fuel cells stacks with a sufficient power density to meet our requirements, including the ultra-heavy payload and built to Australian Design Rules,” Mr Kim said.

“In addition, Hyzon Motors was the only Original Equipment Manufacturer that was interested in supplying the Australian market in the next 18 months.”

Sun Metals is planning to develop a Phase 1 SunHQ hydrogen hub, co-located at the refinery and its 124MW solar farm.

The hub will produce green hydrogen from a 1MW electrolyser which will be compressed, stored and dispensed through a refuelling station and ultimately made available to other transport operators.

“We aim to be an extreme user of hydrogen which means we are looking for ways to make it pervasive across the group’s businesses,” Mr Kim said.

“For Phase 1 of SunHQ, we are planning to purchase five ultra-heavy hydrogen fuel cell trucks from Hyzon Motors and lease them to our sister company, Townsville Logistics.

“These fuel cell trucks will replace their diesel equivalents and avoid 1300 tonnes of CO2 each year.

“In fact, these trucks will have zero emissions and the only by-product will be water vapour. This short-haul fleet will operate between the Sun Metals zinc refinery and the Port of Townsville which is roughly a 30km round trip.”

Ark Energy is an Australian subsidiary to parent company Korea Zinc, the largest zinc, lead and silver producer in the world.

It has a mandate to decarbonise the energy supply of the group, starting with Sun Metals.

CEO of Hyzon Craig Knight said: “Through Ark Energy, Korea Zinc leads this notoriously hard-to-abate sector – demonstrating that decarbonisation can happen now.

“This initial order and Ark Energy’s hydrogen hub lays the foundation for an emissions-free future.”

A development application to develop the hydrogen hub has been submitted to the state government’s Office of the Co-ordinator-General.

Originally published as Sun Metals aims to be world’s first to produce ‘green’ zinc