Carbon capture and storage

Mitsubishi Plans To Test World’s First Marine-Based Carbon-Capture System

The project aims to identify risks and conduct operability and safety evaluations for the world’s first attempt at capturing carbon dioxide at sea.

A conceptual drawing shows the carbon dioxide recovery demonstration plant.
A conceptual drawing shows the carbon dioxide recovery demonstration plant.
Credit: Mitsubishi Shipbuilding.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding is working in cooperation with Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) to conduct test operations and measurements for a small-scale ship-based CO2-capture demonstration plant.

The demonstration involves converting the design of an existing CO2-capture system for onshore power plants to a marine environment and installing it on board a ship in service. This project, called Carbon Capture on the Ocean (CC-Ocean), is intended to achieve CO2 capture at sea, a world first.

The project is planned to last for 2 years. In 2020, with verification from ClassNK, a hazard-identification study will be launched for the design of the demonstration plant and the onboard installation. Manufacturing of the small-scale CO2-capture demonstration plant and safety assessment of the system will be conducted by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding. The demonstration plant will be manufactured in mid-2021 and, following operational tests at the factory, will be installed on board a coal carrier for Tohoku Electric Power operated by K Line. Through operational and performance confirmation in an actual marine environment, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding then will determine the system specification requirements as a marine-based device and will also consider how to make the plant more compact.

Mitsubishi said the demonstration experiment conducted at sea is the first of its kind and that the knowledge gained will be used for development of technologies and systems to capture CO2 from the exhaust gases of marine equipment and ships. Further, the captured CO2 can be recycled for use as a new source of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery or as raw material in synthetic fuel, helping to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.