Innovative Climate Change Emissions Reduction: The Cargo Ship Flettner Rotor Centrifugal Vortex Exhaust Scrubber

Overview

Our global cargo ships transport 90% of goods and release 4% of climate change emissions and particulate, causing 7.6 million childhood asthma cases and 150,000 premature deaths annually. A novel centrifugal vortex scrubber integrated into a Flettner rotor creates a hybrid wind and fossil fuel powered vessel that cleans exhaust while generating auxiliary wind propulsion. 3D CAD modeling, computational fluid dynamics, and prototyping were used for design iterations and testing. Flettner rotor performance was measured in a water test tank and wind tunnel and not diminished by the scrubber. The exhaust scrubber was simplified, replacing high-maintenance moving parts with a cyclonic separation-based design for cylindrical Flettner rotor geometry. Results were statistically significant. The scrubber removed 42% of particulate matter without high- maintenance fans or alkaline water mist. The Kutta–Joukowski force generated was significant, even in mild wind. This Flettner Vortex Scrubber shows promise as an economically attractive design to reduce marine heavy fuel oil engine emissions and fuel consumption. Combining Flettner rotors with an exhaust scrubber makes the investment more attractive for ship owners and operators, and can increase the rate of adoption of this important climate change and public health risk mitigation technology. The Flettner Vortex Scrubber enables a neopanamax ship to transport 53 more TEU containers, worth $185,000 on one trip from Shanghai to New York. If conservative estimates of Flettner rotor performance scale to the global cargo shipping fleet, it could mean a climate change impact equivalent to taking five million cars off the road.

Competition history

• JSHS 2022 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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