Marine South East’s ‘GLEAMS’ (Glycerine Fuel for Marine Sustainability) project has concluded that glycerine is a viable, extremely clean alternative marine fuel.
The year-long project gathered the evidence and conducted the analysis necessary to show that glycerine is a technically feasible, very low emissions alternative fuel for the marine market. The factors, positive and negative, influencing adoption of the technology have been teased out and assessed and found favourable in significant defined markets.
The partners have committed to an outline plan for its commercial realisation, which includes pilot operational usage.
GLEAMS believes that there are many initial niche markets for glycerine fuel that will value its non-toxic, clean burning and safe characteristics and will not be hampered by the current lack of extended supply chains for the fuel. The project consortium is now exploring early marine sector applications for this novel fuel.
GLEAMS has been particularly successful in overcoming the widely held view that glycerine is unsuitable for use as a fuel due to its physical and chemical properties (it has a negative cetane number). It has clearly and publicly demonstrated that glycerine can be used as a fuel by itself and without additives in compression ignition engines by displaying the GLEAMS marine engine operating on it at the Seawork International 2014 Commercial Marine Exhibition.
All glycerine is currently produced as a by-product of the bio-diesel industry and is in surplus supply. The available quantities are insufficient to power the world’s deep-sea shipping fleets but could support a range of smaller vessel types and shore applications. There is potential for a massive increase in glycerine supply from other organic renewable sources such as salt-stressed algae.
Over the short to medium term the project expects the technology to be adopted, at least on a trial basis, in one or more niche markets.
