By
Alex Smith |
Engineering company TecnoVeritas is working with Portuguese shipowner Mystic Cruises to convert the diesel engines onboard its ships to operate with hydrogen fuel.
The technology was developed by Jorge Antunes, CEO of TecnoVeritas, during his PhD research. It enables existing diesel engines to be converted to operate in a dual-fuel mode, which reduces exhaust pollutants and emissions.
The engine retains the capacity to provide full power using just marine diesel oil fuel, while the hydrogen gas circuit is kept to a minimum size. The storage is based on a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) solution, which will be carried onboard by barge or by truck at atmospheric pressure and temperature. This will eliminate the need for cryogenic solutions and reduce the cost of conversion.
TecnoVeritas is carrying out engine tests and expects to be able to generate 90 per cent of the energy per cycle from hydrogen. The remaining 10 per cent would come from the marine diesel oil, which will act as a pilot fuel. However, TecnoVeritas has predicted that it could reach up to 95 per cent depending on the type of engine. It will also complete a study of ship bunkering capacity and stability to make sure there is room for the required LOHC solution onboard Mystic Cruises’ vessels.
The technology has already been tested for use on medium- and high-speed engines, so it will be applied to these first. Large bore two-stroke engines have not yet been tested by the company due to the difficulty of simulating reactions. Therefore, a test engine will be built to verify the effectiveness of the solution.
TecnoVeritas expects that the solution should be available to be installed onboard Mystic Cruises vessels by the end of 2021.