Mitigation of Ship Emissions: Overview of Recent Trends

The urgency of reducing flue gas pollution in maritime transport makes it necessary to take a holistic view of its sustainability and environmental impacts. Among the approaches to reducing ship exhaust emissions, marinized gas scrubbers, given their ability to be retrofitted to existing ships, are a central element in the tradeoff against the use of expensive low-sulfur fuels. However, compounding this issue, the priority of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the coming decades poses new challenges to emissions compliance. The use of exhaust gas cleaning systems to remove SOX, NOX, and particulate matter (PM) emissions will be enhanced in the short to medium term by GHG reductions. In this study, the different types of scrubbers for seaborne operation and the potential risks associated with their secondary emissions will be critically reviewed. In addition, NOX reduction systems and recent efforts to reduce CO2 through onboard carbon capture systems or alternative fuel combustion will also be covered.