Transport Problems (Jan 2013)
Future needs for ship emission abatement and technical measures
Abstract
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has revised air pollution regulations in MARPOL Annex VI. In 2012 Emission Control Areas (ECA) will limit fuel sulphur content to 1% and from 2015 to 0.1%). NOx emissions based on ships engine speed are also reduced for new vessels (2012 & 2016). Facing this legislation, ship owners have the alternative either to operate ships with costly low-sulphur fuels, or to keep using HFO but together with a gas cleaning equipment at the ship stack in order to reduce the rejected amount of SO2 gas in the atmosphere. To achieve this requirement, research and development organizations came out with proposing a solution that uses a device for cleaning exhaust gas of marine diesel engines. The paper presents a short communication about the DEECON project, which aim is to create a novel on-board after-treatment unit more advanced than any currently available. Each sub-unit of the system will be optimized to remove a specific primary pollutant. In particular, the technology within the DEECON system is based on novel or improved abatement techniques for reducing SOx, NOx, Particulate Matter (PM), CO and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). Some of these technologies are completely new for the maritime sector and they will represent a breakthrough in the reduction of the atmospheric emissions of ships, moving forward the performance of exhaust gas cleaning systems and fostering and anticipating the adoption of future and tighter regulatory requirements. In addition, an after-treatment strategy enables the possible adoption of alternative fuels, which often have their own emissions characteristics.
