Danish business conglomerate Maersk Group, in collaboration with Belco Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of DuPont, has tested the BELCO marine scrubber system on its Tukang container ship.
The fully automated BELCO marine scrubbers manage themselves through GPS signals and help to reduce sulphur oxide (SOx) and particulates from ship engine emissions.
This enables the ships to meet sulphur emission limits put forth by IMO MARPOL Annex VI regulations without switching to low-sulphur fuel.
In 2013, the system was deployed on the Maersk Tukang ship, which has a maximum twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) capacity of 8,112t, during its scheduled drydock in Qingdao, China.
Tests were performed for more than six days in May during the ship’s voyage from the Port of Algeciras, Spain to Genoa, Italy, in the presence of officials from BELCO, Maersk and a surveyor from the American Bureau of Shipping.
BELCO offers three design solutions for ship exhaust management: open-loop, closed-loop and hybrid.
Open-loop tests of the system found that BELCO was compliant with MARPOL Annex VI regulations for all air and washwater emission criteria.
However, the closed-loop testing is scheduled for early autumn. The BELCO marine scrubber system is expected to receive class certification later this year.
BELCO designs and supplies exhaust gas cleaning systems that operate without any maintenance for longer periods of operation.
