Korea Gets its First Domestically-Built Onboard Carbon Capture System

A consortium of Korean maritime technology companies have finished installing a proprietary onboard carbon capture system on a sub-Panamax boxship, and verification and operational testing will start soon. 

Working together, Samsung Heavy Industries, HMM, Panasia and Korea Register developed a carbon capture system made wholly with Korean components. In little more than a year after project start, the system has been fully installed on the 2,200 TEU boxship HMM Mongla (after risk assessment and review by the class society). 

"Carbon capture technology is highly regarded as one of the effective measures for reducing greenhouse gases, drawing significant attention from the international community and the shipping industry. Based on the experience and outcomes of this successful project, KR will make every effort to support the shipping industry in timely decarbonization," a KR spokesperson said in a statement. 

Onboard carbon capture is an active field of research in leading shipping countries, and initial results look promising. According to BV, carbon capture systems should be capable of reducing CO2 emissions by 82-90 percent. 

However, like all clean shipping technologies, carbon capture systems have unique and new challenges. The carbon must be stored until the voyage's end, and this requires extra thought to accommodate the additional volume and mass of the captured CO2. Each kilo of fuel burned produces about three kilos of CO2 gas, and the weight of the compressed or liquefied gas must be stored on board.

Other early proponents of onboard carbon capture include Capital Gas, MOL, TotalEnergies, Solvang, Heerema and many others. Early testing aboard the LNG carrier Seapeak Arwa suggests that capture rates of about 85 percent are achievable in practice.