The International Maritime Organization has left shipowners with a technology need, that the technology industries have not yet produced. The time window is just about three years to choose until now between a sharp rise in fuel costs with no guarantee of regular quality, a huge up-front capital cost for a scrubber or a new LNG propelled ship, or the legal risk of ignoring the sulphur cap and hoping the law doesn’t catch up with them.

 

Hanging over shipping industry is the possibility of the status quo being upended again in a few years as regulators turn to address other types of emissions, like particulate matter in all its forms (PM10, Black Carbon). Shipowners will first need to have a clear view of their finances, and technologies available to see if they can access the credit for a scrubber, or whether they’ll be in a position to take a cut in profits from higher fuel bills in 2020 – or pass the cost on to their customers. A worse problem will be the impossibility of arranging low sulphur fuels in all ports of call around the world.

 

Fortunately, a new technology may solve shipowners emissions problems on time, by tackling the emissions of the different exhaust pollutants at once, while making possible to improve engines fuel consumption. The Innovation Marine Technology Company, TecnoVeritas Ltd, pursued a research since 2009 to improve the heavy fuel oil quality in what concerns the emissions and the engines efficiencies, following a line of research related with the use of high-intensity ultrasonic fuel processing. Using that technology since 2010 at industrial scale, the thermionic water molecule decomposition into hydrogen, oxygen and its peroxides are promoted. Tests carried out into real scale plants, have confirmed what the laboratory tests have pointed out, evidencing a drastic reduction of SOx, NOx, CO, PM and a Specific fuel consumption.

 

If in one hand, the system allows the compliance with all types of exhaust emissions components, on the other hand, specific fuel consumption reductions in the order of 6%, were achieved, contributing to counteract the vessels extra CO2 costs due to energy inefficiencies.

 

The Enermulsion System, has been tested with most of the main engine manufacturers like Wartsila, MaK, and MAN, therefore giving confidence and field validated results, which turns ENERMULSION a valid solution for the ship owners and power plant operators, as it tackles emissions and reduces specific fuel oil consumptions and therefore tonnes of CO2. Remember, for each ton of heavy fuel oil, about 3.16 tons of CO2 are emitted, and a forecast of 80€/ton of CO2 is foreseeable in a very near future. (Presently a ton of CO2 costs about 6€).