PORTEFEUILLE

In collaboration with the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) at EPFL, Daphne Technology SA from Canton Vaud is developing an exhaust gas cleaning technology to help the marine industry to reduce air pollution. The shipping industry is vital for the world economy, providing the most economical transportation system. Unfortunately, this industry is also one of the largest air polluters in the world. Sulphur and nitrogen oxides (SOx and NOx) emitted in the exhaust gases of ships contribute to acid rain, low-level smog, and indirectly to global warming. The human health impact of those pollutants includes premature cardiovascular mortality and lung cancer. For all these reasons, it is essential for humanity to implement a sustainable sea transportation system. To address this problem a patented technology that could enable us to simultaneously reduce SOx by 99% and NOx by 85% from ship exhausts has been developed.
This method uses arrays of carefully arranged nanostructures that interact with the pollutant’s molecules and provide the required energy to start a chemical reaction. This technology can be used with the currently used fuel (bunker fuel) and without affecting ship operations. The technology also indirectly reduces CO2 through increased efficiency in fuel consumption. In addition, this technology is implemented in a fully closed loop with no waste production: produces a very valuable by-product: agricultural fertilizer (ammonium nitrate).
We are currently in our route to commercialization, but one issue remains. There is not available supplier of the exact type of nanostructure arrays we require in large industrial scale. We have previously developed with the support of Gebert Rüf Stiftung a nano-fabrication method with the potential of producing large format arrays of nanostructures, but it is not at an industrial scale yet. Furthermore, the suppliers that could modify their product to meet our needs use techniques that are too expensive to be commercially feasible. To commercialize our product, we need to address this market failure and weakness in the value chain. This is the purpose of this project, to leverage our previous enhanced nano-manufacturing development, the expertise of industrial plasma processing at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL and develop and industrial process (and equipment) to produce economically large quantities of nanowire arrays in large formats.
In collaboration with the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) at EPFL, Daphne Technology SA from Canton Vaud is developing an exhaust gas cleaning technology to help the marine industry to reduce air pollution. The shipping industry is vital for the world economy, providing the most economical transportation system. Unfortunately, this industry is also one of the largest air polluters in the world. Sulphur and nitrogen oxides (SOx and NOx) emitted in the exhaust gases of ships contribute to acid rain, low-level smog, and indirectly to global warming. The human health impact of those pollutants includes premature cardiovascular mortality and lung cancer. For all these reasons, it is essential for humanity to implement a sustainable sea transportation system. To address this problem a patented technology that could enable us to simultaneously reduce SOx by 99% and NOx by 85% from ship exhausts has been developed.
This method uses arrays of carefully arranged nanostructures that interact with the pollutant’s molecules and provide the required energy to start a chemical reaction. This technology can be used with the currently used fuel (bunker fuel) and without affecting ship operations. The technology also indirectly reduces CO2 through increased efficiency in fuel consumption. In addition, this technology is implemented in a fully closed loop with no waste production: produces a very valuable by-product: agricultural fertilizer (ammonium nitrate).
We are currently in our route to commercialization, but one issue remains. There is not available supplier of the exact type of nanostructure arrays we require in large industrial scale. We have previously developed with the support of Gebert Rüf Stiftung a nano-fabrication method with the potential of producing large format arrays of nanostructures, but it is not at an industrial scale yet. Furthermore, the suppliers that could modify their product to meet our needs use techniques that are too expensive to be commercially feasible. To commercialize our product, we need to address this market failure and weakness in the value chain. This is the purpose of this project, to leverage our previous enhanced nano-manufacturing development, the expertise of industrial plasma processing at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL and develop and industrial process (and equipment) to produce economically large quantities of nanowire arrays in large formats.

This project has enabled the industrial production of a key sub-component of the exhaust gas cleaning system. This will result in faster deployment of the technology and subsequent reduction of pollutants emitted to the atmosphere. It will help commercial shipping fleets to be more sustainable and reduce waste discharge to sea.

We have completed our electrode fabrication process and have performed successful lifetime and reliability tests in the real application.
Daphne Technology have secured funding for the development of the exhaust gas purifying system and the implementation of an industrial scale prototype which has been developed and is operational now. Installation onboard a ship is in progress in and expected to be completed in 2022.