Rising fuel prices, increasing emission levels and impending environmental regulations made shipping industry to find an alternate for internal combustion engine in 21st century. Fuel cell is a sustainable, emerging t...Rising fuel prices, increasing emission levels and impending environmental regulations made shipping industry to find an alternate for internal combustion engine in 21st century. Fuel cell is a sustainable, emerging technology with negligible pollution. More significantly for a research ship, emission levels need to be substantially low to have quality measurements. A feasibility study is carried-out First time in the world, to drive an ice class multi-disciplinary ORV (Oceanography Research Vessel) Sagarnidbi, using hydrogen powered fuel cell. Sagamidhi is equipped with special equipments viz., Deep Sea winch, specially designed cranes for Launching and retrieval of ROV (Remotely Operable Vehicle), DSMC (Deep Sea Mining Crawler), Tsunami systems, manned/unmanned submersible and ACS (Autonomous Coring System) and other facilities that support research in Indian, International and Antarctic waters. Beside this, the propulsion system along with DP (Dynamic Positioning), centralized air conditioning and special equipments require enormous electrical power. The combustion of diesel oil in an engine, that coupled with an alternator generates electrical power required, along with NOx (Nitrous Oxides), SOx (Sulphur Oxides) and PM (Particulate Matter) emissions. Shipping industry is the fourth largest contributor to air pollution and carbon emissions, particularly in coastal areas, and the growth rate makes the problem even more critical. Stringent international air pollution regulation and increasing fuel price paves the way for an alternative "green emission technology". Various fuel cells were analyzed with different combination of fuel, electrolyte and electrodes. From the analysis, it has been found that SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) is most suitable for the present scenario. A fuel cell designed with hydrogen as fuel, zirconium oxides stabilized with yttrium oxide as electrolyte and zirconium electrodes is used for 1.5 MW power output and 0.5 MW through regenerator. Volume required for storage of hydrogen is in line with volume of fuel and a high standard safety measures were taken using sensors. The present system saves 3000 MT/annum of diesel oil costing 3,000,000 USD approximately.展开更多
文摘Rising fuel prices, increasing emission levels and impending environmental regulations made shipping industry to find an alternate for internal combustion engine in 21st century. Fuel cell is a sustainable, emerging technology with negligible pollution. More significantly for a research ship, emission levels need to be substantially low to have quality measurements. A feasibility study is carried-out First time in the world, to drive an ice class multi-disciplinary ORV (Oceanography Research Vessel) Sagarnidbi, using hydrogen powered fuel cell. Sagamidhi is equipped with special equipments viz., Deep Sea winch, specially designed cranes for Launching and retrieval of ROV (Remotely Operable Vehicle), DSMC (Deep Sea Mining Crawler), Tsunami systems, manned/unmanned submersible and ACS (Autonomous Coring System) and other facilities that support research in Indian, International and Antarctic waters. Beside this, the propulsion system along with DP (Dynamic Positioning), centralized air conditioning and special equipments require enormous electrical power. The combustion of diesel oil in an engine, that coupled with an alternator generates electrical power required, along with NOx (Nitrous Oxides), SOx (Sulphur Oxides) and PM (Particulate Matter) emissions. Shipping industry is the fourth largest contributor to air pollution and carbon emissions, particularly in coastal areas, and the growth rate makes the problem even more critical. Stringent international air pollution regulation and increasing fuel price paves the way for an alternative "green emission technology". Various fuel cells were analyzed with different combination of fuel, electrolyte and electrodes. From the analysis, it has been found that SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) is most suitable for the present scenario. A fuel cell designed with hydrogen as fuel, zirconium oxides stabilized with yttrium oxide as electrolyte and zirconium electrodes is used for 1.5 MW power output and 0.5 MW through regenerator. Volume required for storage of hydrogen is in line with volume of fuel and a high standard safety measures were taken using sensors. The present system saves 3000 MT/annum of diesel oil costing 3,000,000 USD approximately.