Search Results (11)

The promising development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies has garnered increased attention in recent years, assuming a significant role in industrial applications and the decarbonisation of the shipping industry. Given that the shipping industry generates considerable greenhouse gas emissions, it is crucial and imperative to implement integrated solutions based on clean energy sources, thereby meeting the proposed climate objectives. This study presents the standard hydrogen production, storage, and transport methods and analysis technologies that use hydrogen fuel cells in marine and industrial applications. Technologies based on hydrogen fuel cells and hybrid systems will have an increased perspective of application in industry and maritime transport under the conditions of optimising technological models, developing the hydrogen industrial chain, and updating standards and regulations in the field. However, there are still many shortcomings. The paper’s main contribution is analysing the hydrogen industrial chain, presenting the progress and obstacles associated with the technologies used in industrial and marine applications based on hydrogen energy. Full article

This study aims to predict the economic transition pathway for alternative fuels in accordance with the 2023 IMO GHG Strategy goals. The assessment considers the impact of alternative fuel transition on fuel costs (∆COST_Fuel,t), carbon emission costs (∆COST_{CO2 eq,t}), and ship new/retrofit costs (∆COST_ship). The parameters and boundary conditions were set based on the current status and trends in the international shipping industry, as determined from previous research, to predict the economic transition pathway for alternative fuels. The results show that in 2050, with a standardized economic efficiency of 130%, profit will reach its maximum value, approximately −54,000 million USD. The study standardized fuel ΔCOST_{j, normalized}, and ΔNPV%_{j, normalized} as a basis for adjusting penetration rates. At this time, considering fuel costs and NPV%, the composition of alternative fuels is as follows: bio-LNG, bio-Methanol, e-LNG, e-Methanol, e-Ammonia, BD, and Fossil-LNG, with shares of 18.56%, 4.00%, 25.64%, 6.00%, 10.00%, 28.00%, and 0%, respectively. Compared to conventional marine fuel HFO, the increase ranges from 23.54% to 69.50% in the 2030s, 0.52% to 0.55% in the 2040s, and decreases by 6.88%–14.69% in 2050. Using more LNG and BD in the 2040s and 2050 is an alternative way to achieve a better economic fuel transition. Moreover, the economic penetration rate combination set in this study can achieve sufficiently small ∆COST_T,t and sufficiently large NPV_Δt under specific assumptions and boundary conditions, rather than an absolute minimum ∆COST_T,t or the absolute maximum NPV_Δt. The results revealed that no single alternative fuel has a comprehensive advantage in reducing carbon intensity and economic performance at all times. Given the uncertainties in the supply chain, cost-effectiveness, and infrastructure for Methanol and Ammonia, LNG and BD play a crucial role in the transition of international shipping fuels. Our work provides a fundamental and comprehensive prediction of fuel transition based on the current status and trends in the international shipping industry. Full article

The digital economy, as a key driver of China’s economic development and industrial structure transformation, provides a strong impetus for the integrated development of the marine industry. Building on relevant research both domestically and internationally, this study employs programmatic grounded theory coding to analyze the effective case data published on authoritative official websites. We construct a theoretical model and architectural design for the integration of digital economy and marine industry, elucidating the crucial roles of digital infrastructure, digital collaborative service platforms, and digital application scenarios in this integration. We propose the following four integration pathways: digital resource collaborative optimization based on the ‘sea–ship–shore–breeding–tourism–management’ framework, industry chain optimization led by the seed industry, industrial cluster format optimization based on ecosystems, and land–sea linkage layout optimization driven by application scenarios. These pathways provide scientific theoretical guidance and practical recommendations for the integrated development of China’s marine industry in the digital economy era. Full article

Marine transportation accounts for approximately 90% of the total trade managed in international logistics and plays a vital role in many companies’ supply chains. However, en-route factors like weather conditions or piracy incidents often delay scheduled arrivals at destination ports, leading to downstream inefficiencies. Due to the maritime industry’s digital transformation, smart ports and vessels generate vast amounts of data, creating an opportunity to use the latest technologies, like machine and deep learning (ML/DL), to support terminals in their operations. This study proposes a data-driven solution for accurately predicting vessel arrival times using ML/DL techniques, including Deep Neural Networks, K-Nearest Neighbors, Decision Trees, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting. This study collects real-world AIS data in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea from a network of public and private AIS base stations. The most relevant features are selected for training and evaluating the six ML/DL models. A comprehensive comparison is also performed against the estimated arrival time provided by shipping agents, a simple calculation-based approach, and four other ML/DL models proposed recently in the literature. The evaluation has revealed that Random Forest achieves the highest performance with an MAE of 99.9 min, closely followed by XGBoost, having an MAE of 105.0 min. Full article

The strengthening of regulations such as EEXI, EEDI, and CII on ship emissions is underway. Despite their application, objective comparisons of ships are hindered by diverse navigation patterns and varying velocity regulations in different seas and ports. Additionally, a lack of basic data impedes comparisons of the optimal design and objective energy efficiency for ships. To address these issues, representative sailing modes, similar to those in the automobile industry, are needed. However, there is no reference for marine applications. This study introduces a methodology for representative sailing modes using the Markov chain. A hundred candidate sailing modes were created, and representative modes were identified through an evaluation equation. All chi-square values for representative sailing modes are within 1%, indicating significant results. This study’s findings can aid in designing optimized systems for new vessels and computing authorized fuel efficiency for vessels with diverse sailing patterns. Full article

Maritime security is facing many challenges due to war conflicts, geopolitics, sanctions, and pandemics. The supply chain for maritime containers has faced considerable obstacles as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous factors, such as port closures, travel restrictions, and a decreased workforce, have impacted the supply chain. The risk of cargo theft, piracy, and other security events has increased as a result of these difficulties. Therefore, it is essential to look at the risk variables that may affect the security of the marine container supply chain during the pandemic. This research paper highlights those risks through the following three indexes: the likelihood index (LI), severity index (SI), and average risk index (ARI) by analyzing 64 risk factors that were prepared and designed by incorporating the Delphi expert survey technique to prepare a systematic questionnaire. The article addresses worries over the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on international supply networks. The causes of the most recent global shipping industry disruptions and their impact on supply chains have been thoroughly examined. In order to reduce the number of disruptions in global supply chains and lower the direct and indirect costs for consumers, the authors have also mentioned the necessary actions that must be implemented. The results concluded after the analysis pointed to “management activities,” such as human resources or the working environment as having the highest possibility of going wrong, whereas “operation activities” were judged to likely be the fatal ones if the security of maritime containers was ever compromised. The main objective of the study is to evaluate how the COVID-19 epidemic may affect international shipping, particularly container shipping, which is currently the most important link in the world’s multimodal land–sea supply chains. Full article

This review paper examines the applicability of biogas and biomethane as potential maritime fuels and examines issues of these fuels from a supply chain perspective (from production to end use). The objectives are to identify: (1) the latest research, development, and innovation activities; (2) issues and key barriers related to the technology readiness to bring biogas/biomethane to market; and (3) commercialisation issues, including cost parity with natural gas (the main competitor). A survey of the literature was carried out based on research articles and grey literature. The PESTEL and SWOT analyses identified opportunities for these fuels due to the relevant regulations (e.g., Fit for 55; the recent inclusion of the Mediterranean Sea as a SECA and PM control area; MPEC 79), market-based measures, and environmental, social, and governance strategies. The potential of biomass feedstock is estimated to have a substantial value that can satisfy the energy needs of the maritime industry. However, production costs of biomethane are high; estimated to be 2–4 times higher compared to natural gas. The market is moving in the direction of alternative drop-in fuels, including liquefied and compressed biomethane (LBM and CBM) and biogas. In terms of potential market penetration, LBM can be used as a marine drop-in fuel for the existing fleet that already combust LNG and LPG due to similar handling. Currently, these vessels are LNG and LPG tankers. However, in newly built vessels, LBM can be also supplied to container ships, vehicle carriers, and bulk carriers (about 20% of newly built vessels). Provided that compressed natural gas infrastructure exists, CBM can be exploited in vessels with low energy needs and low space requirements and shore-side electrification, because investments in retrofits are lower compared to constructing new infrastructure. Full article

Since the implementation of the sulfur cap legislation in 2020, marine very-low-sulfur fuel oil, often known as VLSFO, has become a crucial source of fuel for the contemporary shipping industry. However, both the production and utilization processes of VLSFO are plagued by the poor miscibility of the cutter fraction and the residual fraction, which can result in the precipitation of asphaltene. In this study, biodiesel was chosen as a cutter fraction to improve the stability and compatibility of asphaltene in VLSFO because of its environmental benefit and strong solubility. The average chemical structure of asphaltene derived from the marine low-sulfur fuel oil sample was analyzed using element analysis, FTIR, ¹HNMR, and time-flight spectroscopy. The composition of biodiesel was analyzed using GC-MS. It was found that the asphaltene had a feature of a short side chain, low H/C ratio, high aromaticity, and a high proportion of heteroatoms. Both laboratory experiments and molecular dynamic simulations were applied to investigate the dispersion effect and mechanism compared with other dispersants. The dispersion effect of biodiesel was studied using measurements of the initial precipitation point (IPP), dispersion improvement rate, and morphology of asphaltene in the model oil. Experimental results revealed that biodiesel was fully compatible with heavy fuel oil and that it can postpone the IPP from 46% to 54% and increase the dispersion improvement rate to 35%. Molecular dynamics (MDs) simulation results show that biodiesel can form strong interactions with the fused aromatics structures and heteroatoms in the asphaltene; such interactions can increase the solubility of asphaltene and acts as a “connection bridge” to promote the dispersion effect of asphaltene molecules. Full article

Based on the micro-data of 79 listed companies in the Chinese marine ship industry chain from 2015 to 2019, this paper calculates the comprehensive technical efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) of the upstream, midstream, and downstream of China’s marine ship industry chain by using a three-stage super-efficiency slacks-based model (SBM), and further analyzes the weak links in industrial chain efficiency and their influencing factors. It is shown that (i) the TE and PTE of the upstream, midstream, and downstream of China’s marine ship industry chain are in a “V”-shaped distribution, high at both ends and low in the middle, but that the SE is ranked as follows: upstream > midstream > downstream. In addition, the PTE is the main factor which hinders the improvement of TE in the industrial chain. (ii) The environmental variables have significant impacts on industrial chain efficiency. When the influences of environmental variables and random error terms are excluded, the industrial chain efficiency changes significantly. The values of SE and TE decrease significantly, and the distribution characteristic of TE changes. However, the PTE is still in a “V”-shaped distribution and appears to be the main driving force for the progress of TE. (iii) China’s marine ship industry chain has obvious weak links in terms of efficiency, and the midstream and downstream areas need to focus on development. Each link of the industry chain has high coupling and low coordination, and they are all closely related to each other, but the coordination ability is insufficient. The industrial chain in terms of efficiency and coordinated development can still be improved. Full article

Today, over 80% of global trade is seaborne. In a world of global supply chains and complex industrial development processes, seaports and port operators play an integral role of utmost importance and act as an incentive to the development of the marine economy and particularly, the national economy in general. Most importantly, the supply chain and demand shocks of Covid-19 on container ports and the container shipping industry have intensified competition among terminal operators. Thus, it is imperative that managers evaluate competitiveness by measuring their past and current performance efficiency indexes. In so doing, we present a hybrid data envelopment analysis (DEA) model that combines the DEA Malmquist method and the epsilon-based measure (EBM) for the first time to address the issue of performance evaluation of seaport terminal operators. The applicability of the proposed hybrid approach is illustrated with a case study of the top 14 seaport companies in Vietnam. First, the Malmquist model is used to assess the total productivity growth rates of the companies, and its decomposition into technical efficiency change (catch-up) and technological investment (frontier-shift). Second, the EBM model is used to calculate the efficiency and inefficiency score of each company. Besides indicating the best-performing companies from certain aspects during the research period (2015–2020), the results reflect that the gap of applying the EBM method in the field of the maritime industry was successfully addressed, and together with the Malmquist model, the integrated framework can be an effective and equitable evaluation model for any area. Furthermore, the managerial implication provides a useful guideline for practitioners in the maritime sector in improving their operational efficacy and helps customers in selecting the best seaport companies in the outsourcing strategy. Full article

Energy efficiency is an important factor in the marine industry to help reduce manufacturing and operational costs as well as the impact on the environment. In the face of global competition and cost-effectiveness, ship builders and operators today require a major overhaul in the entire ship design, manufacturing and operation process to achieve these goals. This paper highlights smart design, manufacturing and operation as the way forward in an industry 4.0 (i4) era from designing for better energy efficiency to more intelligent ships and smart operation through-life. The paper (i) draws parallels between ship design, manufacturing and operation processes, (ii) identifies key challenges facing such a temporal (lifecycle) as opposed to spatial (mass) products, (iii) proposes a closed-loop ship lifecycle framework and (iv) outlines potential future directions in smart design, manufacturing and operation of ships in an industry 4.0 value chain so as to achieve more energy-efficient vessels. Through computational intelligence and cyber-physical integration, we envision that industry 4.0 can revolutionise ship design, manufacturing and operations in a smart product through-life process in the near future. Full article