Lomar Shipping is backing a US start-up that aims to have methane-reduction systems fitted on vessels.
The Greek shipowner’s tech venture fund lomarlabs will help Silicon Valley climate company Blue Dot Change to design and develop the kit.
Blue Dot’s compact iron-particle dispenser aims to break down methane in the air. The gas is at least 25 times more harmful than CO2 for climate change, it claims.
lomarlabs managing director Stylianos Papageorgiou said Lomar’s diversified fleet of vessels will be used as “floating labs” in a real-time marine environment to test the new technology.
He added: “lomarlabs is advising on the engineering and design of this transformative solution, adapting it to the realities of everyday shipping operations and providing industry insight and expertise.”
“We are focused on catalysing new, environmentally driven technologies and believe this nature-centred approach has the potential to introduce systematic, gradual change in the way we remove methane from the air,” the boss said.
The idea is to accelerate nature's existing methane-removal process from the air by releasing iron-rich particles that contain chloride.
This is then converted into vapour and sunlight irradiates these particles, producing chlorine radicals.
These, in turn, can drive reactions that convert methane into two water and one carbon dioxide molecule in the atmosphere.
Ships are an ideal testing ground for this unproven and potentially transformational technology, as they already operate in an ideal environment for breaking down methane, the companies argue.
No geological barriers
Shipping emissions can be cut because “there are no geological barriers to the wind blowing in an oceanic environment. With ample access to wind, the catalyst permeating the atmosphere will increase the ability to naturally speed up the methane removal process,” Blue Dot said.
If enough commercial ships were to adopt this technology, the tech start-up believes rising temperatures could be cut by a third through methane removal from oceanic air.
Preparations to install and deploy the first fully operational system on a Lomar vessel will take place sometime in late 2024 or early 2025.
Lomar chief executive Nicholas Georgiou adds: “Lomar is committed to exploring technologies that will unlock maritime innovation and propel both our company and our industry towards a sustainable, greener future.”
In April, Lomar revealed the first company backed by lomarlabs, which was founded in March.
The subsidiary is collaborating with Seabound, a climate start-up that builds carbon capture equipment for ships to trap up to 95% of their emissions.
Seabound has developed a patent-pending compact carbon capture device that can be retrofitted into a ship’s engine exhaust at the funnel.
The CO2 chemically reacts with pebbles of quicklime, which then convert into limestone, keeping the CO2 locked in.
