Greenhouse gas emissions from ships are currently estimated at 3% of the total global emissions, and are expected to grow by 2050 up to 17%. This is inconsistent with the COP21 Paris agreement global action plan which aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C. In order to address the Paris agreement, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) targets to reduce the total annual GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008, while pursuing efforts towards phasing them out entirely.
In MemCCSea project, our idea is to capture carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) from ships and floating vessels ON BOARD using membrane technology, seawater together with special chemical promoters and advanced materials, such as ceramics, graphene and polymers. To accomplish this, we plan to create a membrane system to “clean” ships’ emissions, with a 10 times smaller volume than conventional scrubbing systems. We intend to recover more than 90% of the main engine CO2 emissions, with 25% lower costs compared to conventional scrubbing systems.
MemCCSea is an ACT ERAnet project co-funded by GSRT (Greece), FZJ/PtJ (Germany), RCN (Norway) and DoE (USA).
