Ballast Water Treatment

8 ballast water treatment systems approved by IMO

At present, 8 ballast water treatment systems in the international maritime industry, including Hitachi clear ballast system, have passed IMO's final approval. The other 7 are: techcross South Korea's Maximo-Clean System, oceansaver System of Norwegian oceansaver, Sedna System of Hamann evonik Degussa of Germany, and pure ballast system of Alfa Laval of Sweden, final greenship's sedinox system, South Korea's NK-O3 company's blue ballast system, Germany's rwo seawater Processing Technology Company's clean ballast system.

South Korea has compared the Ballast Water Management Convention with the performance standards of regional sea areas in various countries. The comparison results show that the D-2 standards of the Convention are mostly lower than the regional sea standards of various countries. At the same time, South Korea's research found that at least seven of the eight ballast water treatment systems approved by IMO met the California emission standards. To this end, Nam Dae Heo from techcross in South Korea recommends that the owner or shipping operator inspect relevant data in detail to ensure that the system meets the emission standards during actual operation.

In the research and development of ballast water treatment systems, China is currently relatively lagging behind. Among them, by Qingdao shuangrui anti-corrosion and pollution Limited Company began to research and development of BAL-CLORTM ballast water treatment system in 2006, at present, only through third-party inspection confirmed to comply with IMO D-2 standards. According to Fu hongtian of the company, the system achieves efficient, economic, and large-capacity treatment of ballast water through effective filtration, seawater electrolysis, neutralization optimization, and other designs, its seawater processing capacity is 700 m³-per hour and has no adverse effects on the marine environment. He revealed that the system is expected to pass IMO final approval this year.

It cannot be ignored that the ballast water treatment system will have a considerable impact on the ship design. Lu changrong of Shanghai ship Research and Design Institute pointed out that the volume of ballast water treatment system and the volume of system itself will have a great impact on ships, especially small ships. Due to the limited space for engine installation, the size of ballast water treatment systems is crucial. At the same time, the ballast water treatment system will increase the operating costs of the ship, the system operation requires more power consumption, and the system itself is expensive.

Accordingly, Lu changrong appealed that the development of ballast water treatment systems meeting the specifications should be combined with the ship design, and the ballast water treatment systems should be as easy to install as other ancillary equipment. He also said that currently there are a wide variety of ballast water treatment systems. According to statistics, more than 30 related products have been developed by the global maritime industry, but there is little practical experience, how to select the most suitable ballast water treatment system for a specific ship is also worth studying.

At present, South Korea has evaluated the feasibility of the ballast water treatment system from the technical perspective. According to Nan daxu, their evaluation results show that the use of ultraviolet radiation technology, the need to increase the engine capacity or increase the number of engines; the use of filtration technology, the need to increase the output pressure of the pump machine; The use of chemical methods, the placement and construction of storage tanks or pipe systems should be considered.

As of October 31, 2009, a total of 18 countries had approved the International Convention on the Control and Management of Ship ballast water and sediment, adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) at the International Conference on ship ballast water management on February 2004. The total capacity of fleets in these 18 countries accounts for 15.36% Of the total tonnage of ships in the world.

Ballast Water Management Convention divides ballast water standards into two levels, namely D-1 standards and D-2 standards. D-1 standards require the use of physical methods, such as injection method, this method has been widely used; while D-2 standards require the use of biochemical method, harmful water organisms in ballast water should be killed by ballast water treatment equipment according to certain standards. According to the requirements of the Convention, part of the new vessels built in 2009 should meet the requirements of D-2 standards and by 2016 all ships should meet the requirements of D-2 standards.