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Fusing water and oil saves fuel
Emulsified fuel technology mixes water and oil to boost fuel efficiency. One supplier, which has recently launched such a system and trialled it on a cruise ship, explains why it expects this technology to gain momentum
BLUE OCEAN SOLUTIONS’ (BOS) founder and CEO Dr Jerry Ng is confident the time is right for emulsified fuel technology (EFT) – the combination of rocketing fuel prices and the need to be more environmentally friendly means that passenger shipowners will be interested to hear that the company says fuel savings of 2-5 per cent are guaranteed if EFT is used.
This was not the case back in the
1980s when Dr Ng worked on the application of emulsified fuel to marine diesel engines as a research assistant as part of his doctorate degree, having graduated with a marine engineering degree from the UK University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He continued his research at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore but, despite all
this work and time, the research did not come to anything. Dr Ng explains: “We had to shelve it because fuel was so low cost at the time that it just did not make commercial sense to bring it into the market.” Fast forward several decades and the timing could not be more right: “The rise in fuel prices in the latter part of 2010 meant there was an urgent need to reduce fuel costs,” said Dr Ng. Therefore Singapore-headquartered Blue Ocean Solutions was born in 2011, backed by Singapore’s Keppel Corp, which has a 70 per cent stake in the company. Blue Ocean’s emulsified fuel system
consists of three parts: an emulsifier and the water control and water tank modules. The key to the technology is how the water is combined with the fuel. Tiny water particles are added to the fuel and heated to 130-135°C under pressure of 8-10 bar. When this water-in-fuel emulsion is injected into
Wärtsilä’s facility tested BOS’ emulsified fuel system
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