An innovative filter that considerably reduces pollution from maritime transport: the shipowner La Méridionale presented on Monday its “zero particle” ferry, which will link Marseille with Corsica, presented as a world first.
“It is an unprecedented solution, a world first,” said Marc Reverchon, president of the company, aboard the Piana on which approximately “the world’s first zero-particle ship” is written.
It is a “completely innovative team in the maritime world”, surpassed the offer of Stanislas Lemor, CEO of Stef, specialist in cold logistics, owner of La Méridionale.
Beyond the regulations
This filter, currently installed on the four Piana engines, removes 99% of sulfur oxides (SO2) but also 99.9% of fine and ultrafine particles, among the main air pollutants emitted by ships.
“They go far beyond what the regulations require, by treating all particle emissions,” Damien Piga, director of external relations and innovation at AtmoSud, a regional air quality monitoring body, told AFP.
Since 2020, the sulfur content of marine fuels has been limited to 0.5%, compared to 3.5% previously, according to International Maritime Organization (IMO) standards. And from 2025 it will be limited even to 0.1% in the Mediterranean.
When La Méridionale launched the experiment in 2018, it was looking for a process to comply with these standards “because we didn’t want to install + debuggers +”, detailed Christophe Séguinot, technical director of La Méridionale.
Engines shut down on the dock
The +scrubbers+, equipment placed in the chimneys of the liners, which consist of washing the fumes with seawater, are the subject of controversy because the majority of shipowners who equip them opt for an open circuit, with discharge of pollutants into the sea, instead rather than a closed system, where filtered sulfur is stored on board ships.
The particulate filter developed by La Méridionale uses a principle already proven in thermal power plants, for example: sodium bicarbonate powder is injected at the engine outlet, in the exhaust gas collector.
The bicarbonate will chemically react with the particles present in these exhaust gases, then it will end its journey in a filter made up of sleeves, on which it will deposit and capture the particles and heavy metals.
Already in 2016, La Méridionale, which offers freight and passenger transport between Marseille, Corsica and Morocco, was the first ferry company in the Mediterranean to electrically connect its ships to the Marseille quay to limit polluting emissions.
Source: BFM TV
