IGPS: Identification of Gross Polluting Ships
Ships are significant emission sources of pollutants. According to recent model calculations ship emissions of sulfur and NOx in Europe will exceed land based emissions in the year 2020. For this reason the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as well as the EU have enforced new regulations aiming in restricting the amount of sulfur in the ship fuel as well as nitrogen oxides emissions.
To detect and measure this pollution, scientists of the Chalmers University (Gothenburg, Sweden, PI: Johan Mellqvist) are developing an airborne method to detect ship plume pollution by flying over the ships and measuring in their exhaust plume.
enviscope GmbH was in charge to provide the aircraft (Partenavia P68B), to install the instrumentation, and to support the measurements during a flight campaign in fall 2011. With a special low-flying permission (150ft AGL) for the German and Danish airspace we were able to fly over the North and Baltic Sea and to fly directly into the plumes emitted by several ships. We were able to trace a lot of different ship-plumes even in small corridors between military restricted areas and bird sanctuaries.
The plumes were quite narrow and hard to hit, especially being close to the ships. Some plumes were visible and easy to detect while others were nearly invisible to the naked eye. Therefore special software tools, developed by our swedish customers, helped a lot to navigate off-shore and to detect the emitted plumes.
Instrumentation:
| Short Description | Manufacturer / Model | Technical parameters |
|---|---|---|
| Fluorescence instrument | Thermo / 43i-TLE | SO2 |
| Chemiluminescence instrument | Thermo / 42i-TL | NOx |
| Non dispersive infrared analyzer | Licor / LI-7200 | CO2 |
| Cavity Ring down analyzer | Picarro / G2301-m | CO2 and CH4 |
| Aerodynamic Particle sizer (Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer Spectrometer) | TSI / 3090 | Particle Size and number 5 – 500nm |
| Optical particle sizer | TSI / 3030 | Particle Size and number 300nm – 10µm |
| Optical spectrometer (spectrometer and CCD camera) | Andor / SR-163 and DU920P-BU | SO2 and NO |
| Laser Altimeter | LD 321 | height above GND |
