Project description
A tool for sustainable oil and sludge management on board ships
Oily water separation systems are the filtering tool for the highly polluted oily water generated by ships during operation. The inefficiencies and the high cost of the current technologies seem to frequently inhibit compliance with international guidelines regarding maximum oil particulates in water upon discharge. Moreover, the sludge becomes unreusable on board the ship unless further energy-intensive treatment is employed to evaporate the contained water. The EU-funded GreenArc500 project is introducing the first and only pre-separator system, which can separate oil from bilge water and handle sludge with 99 % efficiency.
Objective
Oily water, generated by ships during operation, is accumulated in bilge wells. As this water is highly polluted, it must be purified using oily water separator (OWS) filtration systems prior to discharge overboard. The MARPOL 73/78 convention demands that no more than 15 ppm of oil particulates in water can be present upon discharge. Non-compliance is heavily fined, yet common, due to the inefficiencies and high costs of current OWS methods. These methods rely on frequent and expensive filter replacement, chemical- and maintenance-heavy pre-separation and in many cases collection of the oily water for fuel-intensive transport to shore refineries. At the same time high (50-70%) water content is accumulated in the oil collection tanks (i.e. sludge tanks). This sludge becomes un-reusable onboard the ship unless further energy-intensive treatment is employed to evaporate the contained water. Watery sludge can alternatively also be transported to shore for processing, which is once again fuel-inefficient and also incurs treatment fees. This is the perfect opportunity for GreenArc 500, the first and only pre-separator system, which can separate oil from bilge water with 99% efficiency. It is easily integrated into existing OWS systems and guarantees that the 15 ppm oil in water particulate limit is met. Our solution is 70-80% cheaper than current market-available pre-separators and 39% cheaper than simply replacing OWS filters, not to mention 90% savings on maintenance costs. This means that the customers’ initial investment in GreenArc 500 will be paid back in less than 1 year. What’s more, GreenArc 500 is already patented and certified by DNV GL as compliant with MARPOL 73/78 regulations and operating on a pilot scale on 18 ships. GreenArc 500 will disrupt the way bilge water and sludge is handled in the shipping industry as it is taken up by owners of ships above 400GT (i.e. subject to MARPOL 73/78), to give us revenues of €11.2 million and a ROI of 5.7 by 2026.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
410 KOLLAFJOROUR
Faeroe Islands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.