The Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has received a €5 million grant. This is from the European Union. The money is to be used to develop an alternative to heavy fuel oil.
This type of fuel oil contains significant amounts of sulphur and nitrogen. That leads to the emission of greenhouse gases and other damaging substances. It’s currently used especially in shipping.
There are alternatives that are less polluting, but this fuel oil is chosen because it’s the cheapest. It’s, however, becoming increasingly difficult to sail on this kind of fuel oil. More and more countries no longer want ships using this fuel to navigate in their national waters.
Affordable alternative
That’s why the TU/e’s working on an affordable alternative. The university will try to extract substances from materials such as sawdust and wood chips. This substance can be used to produce renewable marine fuel.
Not only Dutch researchers are involved in developing this product. Scientists from Germany, Switzerland and Spain are also part of the project. It’s called IDEALFUEL and the consortium’s being led by the TU/e. It officially kicked off on 1 May.
Translation: Melinda Walraven
