The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) recently announced that 17 institutions, including Pusan National University (PNU) Hydrogen Ship Technology Center and Samsung Heavy Industries, started the project to develop “eco-friendly vessels for marine waste collection and disposal.” MOF plans to create and operate related technologies by 2026, with a total investment of 45.7 billion won in this project, including the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam.

In the meantime, the MOF and the governments in provinces have collected an average of 120,000 tons of marine waste every year, transported it to the land, and then reclaimed and incinerated it. It was pointed out that this way consumes a lot of time and money as well as environmental pollution, including soil pollution and greenhouse gas, but there was no solution.

However, if waste is collected and treated at sea through this project, it will not only reduce time and cost compared to the traditional method, but also decline ship capacity and transportation, which will lead to the lessening of greenhouse gas emissions.

The ship will be built as a hybrid ship based on LNG-hydrogen fuel and will freeze and crush waste collected on board using disposed cold thermal energy that occurs during the usage of LNG fuel. Then, the pulverized powder is injected as a raw material for synthetic gas production, and hydrogen made from synthetic gas is connected to the hydrogen fuel cell in the ship to supply power. If the ship created through this project is commercialized and utilized by the governments in provinces, the disposal method of ship waste is expected to be dramatically improved.

Reporter Jun Hyung-Seo

Translated by Park Yeon-Hee