Testing on-board ballast water treatment facilities in the laboratory scale

Shipping has been found to be one of the main modes of transmission for non-indigenous species (NIS) today. Before the late 1990s there was no knowledge of the number of ballast and fouling species that are being brought into the European coastal seas. However, during the last decades a lot of scientific reliable data have been collected to show the obvious increase of introductions during the last 50 years through the world. In European scale, the new invaders have introduced themselves to all the main sea areas due to increases in the number, size and speed of ships, the successive opening of new trade routes in the post-war era and the expansion of aquaculture. Tentative figures obtained during the study indicate high numbers of invaders in the Baltic Sea (> 105 species of which some 70 established) in relation to its low number of native species of plants and animals. For British waters, it was estimated that about 55% of primary introductions of all NIS had probably been introduced in association with shipping. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov there are more than 45 NIS recorded of which 16 are of North American origin. A research project MARTOB (On Board Treatment of Ballast Water (Technologies Development and Applications) and Application of Low-sulphur Marine Fuels), partly funded by EU, was established in 2001 to find out solutions on the development of onboard ballast water treatment. The research program consists of various sub-projects and working packages among them the laboratory scale testing of the different treatment systems has been one of the most interesting tasks. The main aims of this study have been to investigate the various possible methods for controlling the transfer of non-indigenous organisms and bacteria through the ballast water. A lot of emphasis has been paid on the to development of cost-effective, safe, environmentally friendly on board ballast water treatment methods which have a minimum impact on ship operations. This paper describes the laboratory test phase of the MARTOB project. Thermal, de-oxygenation, ultraviolet, ultrasonic, oxicide and ozone treatment methods were tested in the University of Newcastle in June 2002 by a group of scientists all over the Europe. The general objectives and the test principles of this test phase have been discussed, too.