Using advanced laser technology, Norsjór aims to reduce fuel consumption, corrosion, and greenhouse gas emissions by removing biofouling without harming the antifouling. Busy ship owners can bring the hull cleaning solution on board.
“We’re proud to say we’ll have five advanced subsea laser system pilots ready for operation this fall. It has been two hectic years to get where we are today,” says CEO Amalie Eilertsen.
With CTO Kennet Karlsen, COO Jarle Haugereid and Jan Eide (expert on optics and laser physics), Norsjór has developed a ground-breaking hull cleaning solution.
“We know stricter regulations regarding hull cleaning are coming. Therefore we have built a unique technology to meet the regulations by developing an advanced subsea laser system to perform sustainable biofouling removal,” Eilertsen explains.
“In a way, you can compare it to cancer treatment. Our laser will infect the biofouling, which leads to the organisms dying and falling off the surfaces. This doesn’t harm the antifouling in any way, neither does it release toxic waste or harm the ocean ecosystem as many traditional hull cleaning methods do.”
Kick start
Norsjór started as a student project. When finishing up her Master´s degree, Amalie Eilertsen was challenged to investigate biofouling on ship hulls. When looking into both technological and regulatory development, she quickly became aware of a potential market, and asked her fellow students, Kennet Karlsen and Jarle Haugereid to join in.
Just before Christmas 2020, after working hard performing market analyses and different technology designs, one of the possible prospects reached out to them.
“They said that we had to keep working on our idea, that it was too good to end along with our education. After finishing our degrees, we decided to bet everything and do so”, says Eilertsen.
In 2021 Norsjór was founded. Suddenly, Eilertsen, Haugereid and Karlsen were business owners without a steady income.
“It was exciting and nerve-wracking simultaneously,” Karlsen recalls.
They quickly started to reach out to investors. After a short while fishing for funds, they caught big fish.
“We’ll never forget the call from Innovation Norway. They decided to fund our start-up with close to 1 million NOK. That really got the ball running”, Karlsen says.
Gaining ground
Norsjór has a lot of interested clients, and this fall, five pilots are to be demonstrated in real-life conditions.
They were recently elected to be part of Equinor’s TechStars program, giving them priceless mentoring and 120.000 USD in funding.
“It has indeed been an exciting journey up to this point. From now on, things will only get more interesting. We know stricter regulations regarding hull cleaning are coming globally. Our solution can also be brought on board, giving busy ship owners and ships without fixed port calls a flexible solution to reduce fuel consumption, corrosion, and greenhouse gas emissions,” Eilertsen says.
Joining Maritime CleanTech
Now, the Norsjór team is looking forward to demonstrating their technology.
“We’ve performed many tests and calculations with promising results, now we´re getting ready to push our solution to the market” Eilertsen explains.
Norsjór has joined Maritime CleanTech to get a broader network, more knowledge and hopefully, more surfaces to clean.
“We have been impressed by the work done by the organization and all the partners. We’re proud to be part of Maritime CleanTech, and will bring our expertise on biofouling to the table,” Eilertsen says.