Sulnox, the greentech company delivering lower fuel costs and emissions with zero capex, is pleased to announce that it has secured its second important patent in Hong Kong.
Focused on the significant fuel oil reclamation market, the intellectual property protects an improved oil / water separation, or ‘demulsification’, methodology developed by Sulnox - incorporating its already patented Berol 6446 product. This development has considerable potential for supporting the maritime industry in tackling its perennial problem of "ships' slops", a hydrocarbon-rich industrial waste produced in various parts of a ship's operations, including tank cleaning, purifying fuels and use of ballast water.
Sulnox’s solution for slops was first recognised by patents for the Company in Nigeria and Eurasia during 2025, before extensive approval in other markets. Slops typically contain around 70% water in what would otherwise be useful heavy fuel oil (HFO). Traditional separation processes often require high heating temperatures and long separation times to allow gravity to drag out the water from the oil in a separation tank. Often, the HFO that is recovered can still contain significant amounts of water (5% and above) which reduce its value and usefulness.
Slops are an inherent by-product of ship operations in major global ports including Hong Kong, one of the world’s busiest maritime hubs. Growth in the wider market for environmentally friendly demulsifiers continues to be driven by tightening environmental regulation and increasing pressure on shipping operators to adopt more sustainable waste-management practices. The global demulsifier market is estimated to grow from approximately US$2.5bn in 2025 to around US$3.3bn by 2032, reflecting steady demand across marine, oil & gas, and industrial applications (Source: VMR).
In Hong Kong, the management of marine oily waste, including slops, is regulated by the Marine Department in conjunction with oversight from the Environmental Protection Department. The Port of Hong Kong handles several thousand ocean-going vessels annually, including a significant proportion of container ships, bulk carriers and oil or chemical tankers. Based on port traffic volumes and typical per-vessel oily residue generation benchmarks, cited in maritime industry literature, the ships’ slops market in Hong Kong is estimated to be of the order of 100–150 million litres per year. This reflects both the scale of port activity and stringent local requirements for proper collection, treatment, and disposal of marine pollutants under international conventions such as MARPOL (Source: PtX Hub International; Safety4Sea).
Sulnox’s has patent protection in over 100 markets across its product portfolio, spanning both fuel conditioning and fuel oil reclamation. The Company continues to expand its intellectual property footprint globally.
Ben Richardson, CEO of Sulnox, commented:
"This second Hong Kong patent is an important extension of our intellectual property, both in the critical Asian market generally, and in fuel reclamation specifically, supporting a sizeable revenue opportunity in the global maritime industry for tackling the issue of slops. Our IP portfolio continues to grow apace. We look forward to announcing several further patents for both emulsification and oil reclamation as we target new sectors and markets worldwide."
