Wärtsilä commercially debuts onboard carbon capture system

The commercial launch follow’s a successful installation of Wärtsilä’s onboard carbon capture system (OCCS) on one of Solvang's fossil-fuelled LPG carriers.

IMAGE: Solvang's Clipper Eris vessel fitted with Wärtsilä's OCCS system. Solvang

Norwegian shipping company Solvang is working with Wärtsilä to make more of the newbuilds it has on order are OCCS-ready, Wärtsilä said.

“This includes CCS-ready scrubber systems, as the engines will operate on HFO, as well as necessary space reservation and utility requirements,” it added.

Catching carbon at sea

Wärtsilä’s OCCS system combines carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from a vessel’s exhaust gases with an amine-based solvent. The captured CO2 is then heated and released from the solvent to cause a chemical reaction that reverses the CO2 absorption.

Amines are nitrogen-containing organic compounds that helps to absorb and regenerate CO2.

The released CO2 gas will be then be liquefied and stored cryogenically on the vessel, while the solvent is ready to be reused in another process.

The system “is proven” to capture 70% of CO2 emissions from a vessel’s exhaust gas, Wärtsilä confirmed.

According to Wärtsilä, its system can be tailored to suit multiple newbuild and retrofitted vessel types.

It can also be “applied to the exhaust from any carbon-based fuel – such as HFO, methanol, LNG and MGO – and is designed to work alongside other emission reduction technologies, including SOx scrubbers, NOx reduction systems, and particulate matter filters.”

The company is seeing a “huge interest” for this system in the shipping industry, Wärtsilä chief executive Håkan Agnevall added.

By Konica Bhatt

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