Shipping is one of the world’s dirtiest industries – could this invention finally clean up cargo fleets? | Shipping emissions

An industrial park alongside the Lea river in the suburbs of London in Chingford may not be the most obvious place for a quiet revolution to take place. But there, a team of entrepreneurs tinker with a modest steel container that could contain a solution to one of the dirty industries in the world.

Inside, there are thousands of granules the size of the cherries in lively lime. At one end, a diesel generator kills pecues through lime, which absorbs carbon, triggering a chemical reaction which transforms it into limestone.

With this invention, Seabound, the company behind it, hopes to capture large quantities of carbon directly from cargo bridges and help clean this surprisingly polluting industry. More than 50,000 cargo cargo are at sea at any time, producing 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – more than aviation.

Behind all this is Alisha Fredriksson, a young entrepreneur who once dreamed of being a doctor but reached a turning point in his career after reading a report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change which detailed the global 1.5C implications (2.7F) V 2C (3.6F) of warming.

“It is at this point that I realized that everyone in the world will be affected by the climate crisis, and therefore if I cared about the social impact on a large scale, the best thing I could do would be to help attack it,” explains Fredriksson, 30, CEO of Seabound. “So the question has become” well, how? “”

Trials have shown that its invention can rub most of the carbon of the ship’s exhaust, filtered through its interior weighed with lime. In the end, the objective is to have this device attached to ships through the world’s oceans, she says.

After identifying the problem she wanted to solve, the real work began. She and her co -founder, Roujia Wen, struck the idea of ​​reducing carbon capture technology based on live -based lime generally used in industrial factories.

They then carried out a prototype and attracted around $ 4 million (3 million pounds sterling) to investor financing. Part of this came from shipping companies. “Everything happened very quickly. Suddenly, we had money, and we had to build it, ”explains Fredriksson. “I think people were ready for a solution.”

Since then, the successive prototypes of the tight container have removed it from the company’s test bed in the eastern London, to the Turkish shipyards, the bridge of a ship of 3,200 containers and on the Suez Canal on a three -week trip to test its effectiveness. This has shown that a sea unit can capture 78% of all the carbon of the exhaust which is pumped through it and 90% of sulfur, a toxic air pollutant.

The latest prototype is under construction on the dimensions of a standard 20 -foot shipping container (5.9 meters), so that it can dive transparently with cargoes on the bridge, known as Fredriksson. The design allows the stacking of several containers such as regular freight and allows the ship to gradually increase carbon capture online with its length of travel and decarbonization objectives.

Once in the port, the units filled with limestone can be replaced by fresh lime containers. This product is manufactured by heating limestone at high temperatures in the ovens, a process with a high energy intensity which also releases CO2 of limestone, which makes production extremely at high carbon intensity.

Companies try to make Quick lime using heated ovens with renewable energies or method development to capture the released CO2 so that it does not enter the atmosphere. Seabound works to get a quick “green” lime, says Fredriksson. “There are currently no large amounts of green lime available worldwide, but many companies in the lime industry work in production – both large holders and various startups.”

Some criticisms fear that decarboning technologies could distract solutions, such as zero ammonia fuel or wind innovations, which are essential to push the maritime industry to the net zero.

“The short -term potential for use of carbon capture renovations on existing ships should not become a justification to extend the lifespan of fossil fuels or delay the transition to truly sustainable alternatives”, explains Blánaid Sheeran, head of the climate diplomacy policy at Opportunity Green, a non -profit organization focused on the world’s speeds of the world.

But Fredriksson thinks that Seabound technology could support this transition. In April, during a meeting of the international maritime organization, the UN member states agreed with a historic agreement which will begin to charge ships for each tonne of emissions higher than a threshold. This threshold will gradually decrease to push the industry to green fuels.

According to Fredriksson, permanently in this new regulatory landscape, allowing ships to decarbonize their fuels, thus reducing their emissions and gradually adapting to the rules by adding more containers over time.

“We can increase the quantity of carbon capture as regulations accelerate,” she says, noting that the invention can start cleaning the ships now while green fuels filter through the industry.

Like most startups, the Seabound faces the challenges of scaling. But with each unit at the price of tens of thousands of books, Fredriksson says that their offer is profitable and it already has the commitment of a company to adapt to the first large -scale containers to its ships this year.

His vision of the future is clear: “It would be that we are on hundreds, hopefully, thousands of ships, and we have hubs in all the main ports of the world,” she said.