ABS grants approval to Hanwha Ocean’s ammonia-fuelled LNG carrier

Classification society ABS has approved South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean’s ammonia-powered liquified natural gas (LNG) carrier design at Gastech 2023 in Singapore.

PHOTO: Hanwha Power Systems’ director and general manager Sung Hyo Cho (left) and ABS global sustainability’s vice president Panos Koutsourakis (centre) at the AiP awarding event. ABS

The 174,000 cbm capacity vessel can utilise ammonia and LNG separately or simultaneously as fuel. The vessel “would be the world’s first carbon emission-free LNG carrier,” if only ammonia is used as fuel, ABS claims.

Equipment company Hanwha Power Systems also received approval from ABS for its supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power system.

Efficiency improvements were reported “as a result of using sCO2 as a working fluid in the turbine,” ABS adds.

sCO2 is carbon dioxide held above a critical temperature and pressure, which causes it to act like a gas while having the density of a liquid. Its supercritical state makes sCO2 a highly efficient fluid to generate power because small changes in temperature or pressure cause significant shifts in its density.

The vessel will be equipped with the sCO2 power system, which also meets the “nitrogen oxide (NOx) requirement without selective catalytic reduction (SCR) regardless of fuel and has significantly reduced methane slip,” Hanwha Ocean says.

SCR is a process of converting NOx into diatomic nitrogen and water with the aid of a catalyst.

“With a global focus on decarbonization, this vessel design represents a big step forward in the shipping industry’s ambitions for zero-carbon cargo transport,” ABS global sustainability’s vice president Panos Koutsourakis said.

By Tuhin Roy

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