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Belco Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-headquartered DuPont, says it has partnered with Maersk Group to "successfully" demonstrate Belco marine scrubber technology aboard the Maersk Tukang, a container ship with a maximum twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) capacity of 8,112.

The Belco Marine Scrubber was tested over six days in May 2014 as it sailed from the Port of Algeciras, Spain, to Genoa, Italy. Representatives from Belco and Maersk were on board. A surveyor from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) was also there to witness and monitor the full testing as the system awaits class certification, expected later this year.

The Belco Marine Scrubber was installed on the Tukang in 2013 in Qingdao, China, during a scheduled drydock. The unit is designed to clean sulphur oxides (SOx) and particulates from exhaust gas emissions from a 3.2 megawatt (MW) auxiliary engine.

Open-loop tests are said to have confirmed that Belco achieved 100 percent compliance with MARPOL Annex VI regulations for all air and washwater emission criteria. Closed-loop testing is scheduled for early autumn 2014.

Belco said it expects a successful demonstration since it has been engineering closed-loop, wet-scrubbing systems for refineries and other land-based applications for over 20 years.

The Belco Marine Scrubber reduces SOx and particulate emissions from ship engines and boilers, enabling vessels to meet sulphur emission limits as required by IMO MARPOL Annex VI regulations without switching to low sulphur fuel. Belco designs and supplies exhaust gas cleaning systems that operate maintenance-free for extended periods of continuous operation.