Monitoring of compliance with fuel sulfur content regulations through unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) measurements of ship emissions

Abstract

Abstract. Air pollution from ship exhaust gas can be reduced by the establishment of emission control areas (ECAs). Efficient supervision of ship emissions is currently a major concern of maritime authorities. In this study, a measurement system for exhaust gas from ships based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was designed and developed. Sensors were mounted on the UAV to measure the concentrations of SO2 and CO2 in order to calculate the fuel sulfur content (FSC) of ships. The Waigaoqiao port in the Yangtze River Delta, an ECA in China, was selected for monitoring compliance with FSC regulations. Unlike in situ or airborne measurements, the proposed measurement system could be used to determine the smoke plume at about 5 m from the funnel mouth of ships, thus providing a means for estimating the FSC of ships. In order to verify the accuracy of these measurements, fuel samples were collected at the same time and sent to the laboratory for chemical examination, and these two types of measurements were compared. After 23 comparative experiments, the results showed that, in general, the deviation of the estimated value for FSC was less than 0.03 % (m/m) at an FSC level ranging from 0.035 % (m/m) to 0.24 % (m/m). Hence, UAV measurements can be used for monitoring of ECAs for compliance with FSC regulations.

Monitoring Sulfur Content in Marine Fuel Oil Using Ultraviolet Imaging Technology

“…At present, there are two main methods to measure ship exhaust: the first is to directly measure the plume via a helicopter or unmanned aerial vehicle carrying a sniffer; the second is to detect ship exhaust with ultraviolet differential absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) systems mounted on helicopters or lighthouse buoys [12]. The first method has the advantage of measuring the plume directly, so the instrument is highly accurate and flexible when mounted on a helicopter or drone platform [13]. However, the drawbacks of this method are also very obvious.…”

A Diffused Mini-Sniffing Sensor for Monitoring SO2 Emissions Compliance of Navigating Ships

“…To reduce air pollution caused by ship exhaust emissions, in December 2015, The Ministry of Transport (MOT) of China issued an Action Plan, which was used to control marine emissions in the Bohai-rim Waters, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta region [ 15 ]. For the purpose of reducing the emissions of SO 2 , NO x and PM from ships, on 10 December 2018, the MOT issued the “Implementation Scheme of the Domestic Emission Control Areas (DECAs)” for Atmospheric Pollution from Vessels [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Therefore, ship emission regulation has become an important work in daily law enforcement of the maritime system.…”

“…Ning et al [ 30 , 31 ] developed a practical alternative method to collect emissions and to determine FSC, using UAV aircraft equipped with compact air pollution-monitoring sensors to monitor ship exhaust emissions. Zhou et al [ 17 , 18 ] designed and developed a set of UAV systems to monitor the emissions of navigating ships and achieved good experimental results. Compared with aircraft, the method of using UAV to carry sniffing sensors to monitor tail gas has the advantages of small size, low cost and simple operation.…”

Determination of NOx emission rates of sailing inland ships from on-shore measurements

“…Shipping emission have been typically investigated using in situ instruments, either on-board or on-shore (e.g., Moldanová et al, 2009;Alföldy et al, 2013;Diesch et al, 2013;Beecken et al, 2014;Pirjola et al, 2014;Beecken et al, 2015;Kattner et al, 2015;Kurtenbach et al, 2016;Kattner, 2019;Ausmeel et al, 2019;Celik et al, 2020;Walden et al, 2021). Additionally, remote sensing techniques such as differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) (e.g., Berg et al, 2012;Seyler et al, 2017Seyler et al, , 2019Cheng et al, 2019;Krause et al, 2021) and more recently UAVs are used to investigate ship emissions (Zhou et al, 2019(Zhou et al, , 2020. The long term impact of shipping emissions has been investigated by modelling studies (Eyring et al, 2005;Ramacher et al, 2018Ramacher et al, , 2020Tang et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2021;Jiang et al, 2021).…”