Onboard desulphurization system. A disruptive solution for low sulfur fuels availability.

 

The desulphurization system is another addition to the portfolio of technologic possibilities available to shipowners and ship operators to deal with envisaged lack of low sulfur fuels around the world. This solution, allows the use of high viscosity and high-density fuels as before, treating these fuels onboard, and disposing of the removed sulfur compounds (sulphones and sulphoxides) ashore.

TecnoVeritas has been involved for more than 20 years with ship energy efficiency. Pursuing the research and development of technology based on water in fuel emulsions assisted by ultrasounds, resulted in a spin-off technology that may be playing a decisive solution for the use of low sulfur fuels on board existing vessels.

 

The patented Ultrasound Assisted Desulphurisation technology by TecnoVeritas, when installed onboard, allow the ship to bunker virtually any quality of fuel to be bunkered, including the fuel with 3.5% sulfur, the only available in many parts of the world.

 

The system, based on ultrasounds make use of onboard produced reactants as well to promote the sulfur oxidation at low temperatures, as sulphones and sulphoxides that can be disposed of with other slop oils. Other reactants used are cheap, and regenerated during the process, by using waste heat on board.

The system has been in operation at laboratory scale for about one year, undergoing analytic tests and optimization, although an industrial scale, a slop oil treatment plant ashore, in Setúbal, Portugal, is equipped with one such desulphurization unit with a throughput of 6 tons per hour.

 

Hyundai Heavy Industries, have demonstrated a great interest in this desulphurization technology, being under negotiation with an MOU, to offer the technology for new constructions.

 

The system is to be delivered in a skid and is available with capacities up to 6 ton per hour.