UK National Clean Maritime Research Hub

Lead Research Organisation: Durham University
Department Name: Engineering

Abstract

Along the well-to-wake value chain from upstream processes associated with fuels production and supply, components manufacture, and ships construction to the operation of ports and vessels, the UK domestic and international shipping produced 5.9 Mt CO2eq and 13.8 Mt CO2eq, respectively in 2017, totalling 3.4% of the UK's overall greenhouse gas emissions. The sector contributes significantly to air pollution challenges with emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matters, harming human health and the environment particularly in coastal areas.

The annual global market for maritime emission reduction technologies could reach $15 billion by 2050. This provides substantial economic opportunities for the UK. The Department for Transport's Clean Maritime Plan provides a route map for action on infrastructure, economics, regulation, and innovation that covers high technology readiness level (TRL 3-7). There is a genuine opportunity to explore fundamental research and go beyond conventional marine engineering and naval architecture and exploit the UK's world-leading cross-sectoral fundamental research expertise on hydrodynamics, fuels, combustion, electric machines and power electronics, batteries and fuel cells, energy systems, digitization, management, finance, logistics, safety engineering, etc. The proposed UK-MaRes Hub is a multidisciplinary research consortium and will conduct interdisciplinary research focussed on delivering disruptive solutions which have tangible potential to transform existing practice and reach a zero-carbon future by 2050.

The challenges faced by UK maritime activity and their solutions are generally common but when deployed locally, they are bespoke due to the specifics of the port, the vessels they support, and the dependencies on their supply chains. Implementation will be heavily dependent on the local community, existing infrastructure, as well as opportunities and constraints related to the supply, distribution, storage and bunkering of alternative fuels, in decarbonising port handling facilities and cold-ironing, with the integration of renewable energy, reducing air pollution, to land-use and increased capacity and capability, and the local development of skills.

The types of vessels and the cargoes handled through UK ports varies and are related to several factors, such as geographical location, regional industrial and business activity and wider transport links. Therefore, UK-MaRes Hub aims to feed into a clean maritime strategy that can adapt to place-based challenges and provide targeted technical and socio-economic interventions through a novel Co-innovation Methodology. This will bring together Research Exploration themes/work packages and Responsive Research Fund project activity into focus on port-centric scenarios and assess possibilities to innovate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, 2040 and 2050 timeframes, sharing best practice across the whole maritime ecosystem.

A diverse, and inclusive Clean Maritime Network+ will ensure wider dissemination and knowledge take-up to achieve greater impact across UK ports and other maritime activity. The Network+ will have coordinated regional activity in South-West, Southern, London, Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, Midlands, North-West, North-East, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. An already established Clean Maritime Research Partnership has vibrant academic, industrial, and civic stakeholder members from across the UK. UK-MaRes Hub will establish a Clean Maritime Policy Unit to provide expert advice and quantitative evidence to enable rapid decarbonisation of the maritime sector. It will ensure that the UK-MaRes Hub is engaging with policymakers at all stages of the hub activities.

Organisations

People

ORCID iD
Anthony Paul Roskilly (Principal Investigator)
Andrew Smallbone (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7843-8967
Pietro Tricoli (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8929-4460
Serkan Turkmen (Co-Investigator)
Ioannis Moutzouris (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6954-9961
Xiang Xie (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4601-9519
Yaodong Wang (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9697-8673
Cliff Dansoh (Co-Investigator)
Angad Panesar (Co-Investigator)
Pengfei Liu (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2158-5442
Laurence Wright (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6297-7288
Janie Ling Chin (Co-Investigator)
Athanasios Tsolakis (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8016-0818
Katie Chong (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3800-8302
Elizabeth Thornley (Co-Investigator)
Dawei Wu (Co-Investigator)
Christopher Gerada (Co-Investigator)
Ying Xie (Co-Investigator)
Dmitriy Makarov (Co-Investigator)
Vladimir Molkov (Co-Investigator)
John Irvine (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8394-3359
Alasdair Cairns (Co-Investigator)
Robert Morgan (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7734-6670
Martin Smith (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0009-0006-0979-9009
Rachael Rothman (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3408-9555
Wenxian Yang (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1122-2990
Zhiqiang Hu (Co-Investigator) orcid http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0806-7616
Penny Atkins (Co-Investigator)
Dongping Song (Co-Investigator)

Publications

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Ebne-Abbasi H (2024) CFD model of refuelling through the entire equipment of a hydrogen refuelling station in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

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Farrukh S (2023) Pathways to Decarbonization of Deep-Sea Shipping: An Aframax Case Study in Energies

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Sivaraman S (2024) Flash boiling and pressure recovery phenomenon during venting from liquid ammonia tank ullage in Process Safety and Environmental Protection