[en] In marine applications powered by internal combustion engines, a considerable amount of the energy contained in fuel is wasted through thermal losses. Additionally, as the years go by, new and more severe standards and regulations are imposed to the maritime industry. Despite of the traditional use of the waste heat recovery systems in ships, in order to meet new emissions demands, the research towards less traditional ways to reduce vessels emissions has been pushed. Nowadays the use of Organic Rankine cycles (ORC) seems to be a very promising solution to increase the global efficiency in maritime applications by converting the vessel’s thermal losses into useful work. Even if ORC’s have been studied during the last decades, it is only in the recent years that the maritime industry has drawn its attention towards these systems. In the first part of this paper, a state of the art of ORC in marine applications is performed. Then, the use of an ORC over traditional waste heat recovery methods (steam Rankine cycles) used in ships is discussed. Finally, a thermodynamic steady-state model of an ORC is coupled to a vessel ICE to estimate the improvements in energy efficiency that could be achieved by implementing an ORC in a vessel.
