Suntory, Tokyo Gas use 100% hydrogen for direct-fired whisky distillation trial at Yamazaki

Japan's Suntory Spirits said April 11 it has succeeded together with Tokyo Gas Engineering Solutions in the world's first direct-fired distillation trial using 100% hydrogen for whisky production at its Yamazaki Distillery in western Japan.

With its cooperation with Tokyo Gas Engineering Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo Gas, Suntory conducted its trial in January at a pilot distillery at the Yamazaki Distillery in Osaka prefecture and completed its quality assessments in March, Yasuhiro Koyama, Suntory's senior general manager of production department told an online press briefing.

Suntory said it has proved that the new make spirits distilled at this trial have the same quality and taste as those produced by conventional natural gas, marking a milestone in its journey to decarbonize its whisky manufacturing while maintaining the quality craftsmanship of its whiskies.

For Suntory, replacing conventional natural gas with 100% hydrogen in this direct-fired distilling process has been a challenging step in decarbonizing whisky manufacturing, the company said.

Describing direct-fired distillation as difficult for hydrogen because of such characteristics as a speedy burning rate, Shinzo Ienaka, general manager of the industrial technology department at TGES, said that the company helped Suntory develop a hydrogen burner and combustion system for the trial.

"By using a small [pilot distillery] with a high flexibility, we have achieved the hydrogen distillation the first in the world," Yushi Noguchi, Suntory's senior general manager of the whisky blending & planning department, said.

"From this time on we will be working on technology demonstration and its practical implementation at a commercial production scale at the Suntory Hakushu Distillery," Noguchi said.

The company now aims to verify this technology at a commercial scale at its Hakushu Distillery at Yamanashi prefecture in central Japan, where it plans to install the country's largest 16 MW-size "Yamanashi Model Power-to-Gas (P2G) System" and produce green hydrogen.

While the Yamazaki pilot distillery scaled at 2 kiloliter, "Hakushu's actual distillery scaled between 10 kl to 15 kl," Noguchi said.

Suntory did not disclose hydrogen volumes used at its Yamazaki trial, as well as timelines for hydrogen introduction at the Hakushu Distillery.