Japanese consortium working on world’s first CO2 capture at sea

The Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, K Line and ClassNK, are cooperating to verify the equipment's use as a marine-based CO2 capture system with support from the Maritime Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), as part of its assistance project for research and development of technological advancements in marine resource development.

The demonstration involves converting the design of an existing CO2 capture system for onshore power plants to a marine environment, and installing it onboard an actual ship in service.

This month, the consortium will launch a hazard identification (HazID) study for the design of the demonstration plant and the onboard installation, with verification from ClassNK.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding will undertake manufacturing of the small scale CO2 capture demonstration plant and safety assessment of the system.

Then, manufacturing of the demonstration plant will occur in mid-2021. Following operational tests at the factory, the plant will be installed onboard a coal carrier for Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. operated by "K" Line.

Through operational and performance confirmation in an actual marine environment, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding will then determine the system specification requirements as a marine-based device and will also consider how to make the plant more compact.

This demonstration experiment at sea is the first of its kind in the world. The knowledge will be useful for future development of technologies and systems to capture CO2 from the exhaust gases of marine equipment and ships.

In addition, the captured CO2 can be recycled for use as a new source of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, or as raw material in synthetic fuel, providing a significant contribution to reductions in GHG emissions.

The project will last two years.