Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. has successfully separated and captured carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust gas emitted from the vessel, coal carrier “CORONA UTILITY”(operated by “K” LINE for Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc.), which has been installed the “CC-OCEAN” project for the verification of CO2 capture plant onboard as part of the "Research and Development for advancing marine resources technologies”, in cooperation with Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (“Mitsubishi Shipbuilding”) and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (“Class NK”), according to the company's release.
As a result of demonstration, the captured CO2 had a purity of more than 99.9%, which is in line with the planned performance.
In early August 2021, after installation of a small-scale CO2 capture plant, experts from Mitsubishi Shipbuilding were onboard the vessel to operate, maintain the plant, and instruct the ship’s crew how to operate, as well as measured, analyzed the captured CO2 and evaluated the system performance.
From mid-September, the ship’s crew has been conducting the operation, measurement and maintaining the plant, and will continue to evaluate the safety and operability of the CO2 capture plant in order to sort out the issues to be considered and conduct research and development for future commercialization.