As already indicated, removal of SOx by scrubbing is a wellassessed
industrial technology, even though use of sea water has
received less attention. As far as NOx removal is concerned, this
process is effective when wet scrubbing is carried out in alkaline
solutions [57,58] In this regard, it should be noted that seawater
is in fact a buffered alkaline solution. Removal of NO alone by
wet scrubbing is virtually impossible [58,59] and the presence of
NO2 is necessary to see any deNOx activity by this method. This
observation guides the basic strategy of the abatement system
used here. In the present combined system, an oxidation catalyst
was included to convert NO to NO2 in order to promote its uptake
in the scrubber, along with species for which scrubbers are known
to be effective (especially SOx and PM).