Ships and Offshore Structures, cilt.20, sa.8, ss.1206-1221, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
In the pursuit of decarbonising sustainable maritime transportation, balancing economic profitability with environmental preservation remains a challenge under existing international regulations. This study addresses the need for new evaluation criteria by analysing oil tanker performance and entropy-based environmental pollution. Using newly developed entropy-based metrics grounded in thermodynamic principles, the vessel's environmental pollution potential is assessed. The results show a strong correlation between exergy destruction, entropy generation and environmental impacts. Average energy and exergy efficiencies are 35.29% and 22.62%, respectively. A holistic performance analysis, incorporating deadweight tonnage (DWT), indicates a pollution rate of 76.53% under reversible conditions. Moreover, by focusing on consumption potential relative to demand (53.45%), the study proposes advanced metrics to assess vessel energy efficiency and pollution. The paper concludes with recommendations to enhance maritime sustainability, emphasising the relevance of operational and climatic data and offers new insights into applying entropy-based approaches in maritime environmental assessments. Highlights The performance metrics relationship between the energy and environmental sustainability of ships were developed for the energy transition. Within a holistic evaluation, the Deadweight Tonnage (DWT) of the oil tankers was associated. The study focused on the cost-effective exergy efficiency of shipping that balances environmental protection with profitability. Energy performance and sustainability goals, and reducing the environmental impact of shipping were integrated. For oil tankers, fuel-related environmental impact develops as a result of an irreversibility of up to 70%.