Journal Article

Numerical analysis of economic and environmental benefits of marine fuel conversion from diesel oil to natural gas for container ships

Elkafas, Ahmed G., Elgohary, Mohamed M., Shouman, Mohamed R.

2021

Overview

Shipping is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions. These emissions mainly come from using diesel fuel for power generation. In this paper, the natural gas is proposed as an alternative marine fuel to be used instead of conventional marine diesel oil. Numerical analysis of environmental and economic benefits of the natural gas-diesel dual-fuel engine is carried out. As a case study, a container ship of class A7 owned by Hapag-Lloyd has been investigated. The results show that the proposed dual-fuel engine achieves environmental benefits for reducing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), particulate matter (PM), and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions by 20.1%, 85.5%, 98%, 99%, and 55.7% with cost effectiveness of 109, 840, 9864, 27761, and 4307 US$/ton, respectively. The results show that the conversion process to the dual-fuel engine will comply with the current and future IMO regulations regarding air pollutant emissions. On the other hand, using the proposed dual-fuel engine on the container ship will improve the ship energy efficiency index by 29.6 % with annual fuel cost saving of 4.77 million US dollars.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: air pollutants / Air Pollutants - analysis / Air pollution / Alternative fuels / Aquatic Pollution / Carbon dioxide / Carbon monoxide / Cargo ships / case studies / class / Container ships / Containers / Cost effectiveness / Diesel / Diesel engines / diesel fuel / Diesel fuels / Dual fuel / Earth and Environmental Science / Economic analysis / Economics / Ecotoxicology / Electric power generation / Emissions / Energy conversion efficiency / energy costs / Energy efficiency / Environment / Environmental benefits / Environmental Chemistry / Environmental Health / Environmental science / Gasoline - analysis / Greenhouse gases / Natural Gas / nitrogen / Nitrogen oxides / Nitrogen Oxides - analysis / Numerical analysis / Particulate emissions / Particulate matter / Particulate Matter - analysis / particulates / Photochemicals / Pollutants / power generation / Research Article / Ships / Sulfur / Sulfur oxides / Vehicle Emissions - analysis / Waste Water Technology / Water Management / Water Pollution Control