Electric Pulses Reduce Emissions Without Scrubber
Hong Kong shipowner Tai Chong Cheang Steamship (TCC) and the University of Southern California have developed a new system for improving fuel efficiency and reducing NOx emissions.
The technology uses tailored electrical nano-pulses to change the underlying chemistry, either at the point of exhaust or during combustion.
The group’s experiments both in laboratories, and via a series of recent sea trials, consistently cut nitrogen oxide emissions at the point of exhaust by almost 90 percent and reduced particulate matter by up to 75 percent.
The emissions research project was initiated and funded by TCC under the leadership of Kenneth Koo, Chief Executive Officer of TCC, as a corporate social responsibility initiative. It was also in response to one of the mandates issued during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit requiring the shipping industry to impose caps on ship-source emissions.
The dramatic improvement in efficiency was achieved using the radically different and more cost effective approach of nano-pulse power, compared to the standard scrubbers typically used on vessels that require training for crews and maintenance, say the researchers, who have also conducted tests using the same technology towards improving the combustion efficiency in marine diesel engines so that they can operate at their optimal continuous rating output.
Koo said, “We believe that this game-changing solution will allow owners and managers to unshackle themselves from the present constraint of slow steaming as the only means to realize lower fuel consumption. I believe this research and its culmination announced today could have fundamental long- term implications for the global shipping industry.”
Koo added, “The maritime industry has been slow in identifying emissions caps since the Copenhagen Summit six years ago. Marine diesel engine combustion efficiency must become the focal point because present designed combustion efficiency peaks at 50 percent, meaning that half of the heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel) ends up as unburnt hydrocarbons, which are then emitted in the form of harmful CO2, NOx and other particulate matter.”
Marine diesel engine makers have largely elected not to tackle ship-sourced emissions at its combustion efficiency roots. However, the associated peripheral technical solutions, such as the use of scrubbers, propeller design, hull form improvement, and improved hull paint coatings are constrained by external factors such as costs, challenging retrofitting processes and operation under variable weather factors. The result is slower steam modes of navigation, if one were to drastically cut fuel consumption, says Koo.
“Slow steaming, as well as super slow steam modes of navigation to drastically cut fuel consumption, are just band-aid solutions with the sole commercial objective to cut costs,” said Koo.
He noted that marine diesel engines were not designed to operate at very low RPM and power output and he argued the industry must go back to the basics by addressing combustion efficiency thus enabling solutions to be demonstrated to reduce, reverse and recover ship-sourced emissions before they are emitted.
“The potentially catastrophic damage that such commercial practices causes, not only premature wear and damage to marine diesel engines through abnormally prolonged navigation under very low RPM and very low output condition but it also causes accelerated damage to other machinery components and systems,” he said.
Classification society ABS has been invited by TCC to review and assist with certification of the emission remediation technology and improved combustion technology.