Final ReportSummary - ECOSEASAFE (Development of a sustainable and cost effective ballast water treatment technology with reverse pulsed DC electric field that excludes formation of oxidising free rad
ECOSEASAFE is a Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project within 'Research for the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)'. The official start date for the project was 1 November 2010 and the project has a duration of 24 months. ECOSEASAFE has the following beneficiaries:
- Teknologisk Institutt AS, RTD and coordinator of the project (Norway)
- Sorbwater Technology AS, SME (Norway)
- Omt Oberflächen- und Materialtechnologie (Germany)
- Fiskal Teknikk AS, SME (Norway)
- Stogda Ship Design and Engineering Sp z O.O SME (Poland)
- Boll Filter Protection Systems, OTH (Denmark)
- Labor S.r.l RTD (Italy)
The projects aim was to develop a new ballast water treatment (BWT) system using reverse pulsed direct current (DC) electric field, without affecting the water chemistry, and to be one of a few options for complying with the present and future IMO standard.
Invasive species have great economic and social implications. The annual cost associated with invasive aquatic species in the United States of America (USA) alone is estimated to more than USD 138 billion, whereas the global cost is more than USD 500 billion. Economic losses to society include reductions in fisheries production, including closing of fish farms, physical damages to costal infrastructure and industry due to fouling, impacts and even closure of recreational and tourism beaches. Secondary economic impacts include effect on human health by introduced pathogens and toxic chemical species. The primary ECOSEASAFE market driver is the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, adopted 13 February 2004 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which required effective control and management of ballast water, either through ballast water exchange (BWE) or ballast water treatment. However, BWE will be phased out as an acceptable method of complying with the convention during the period 2012 - 2016, depending on the vessel's ballast water capacity and delivery date. The convention contains a standard for effective removal or inactivation of the organisms potentially entrained in it, which is subject to revision to meet more stringent conditions suggested by USA. The future standard will likely fulfill the US demand of zero emissions of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, as well as toxic chemicals added or induced by the BWT. A goal by IMO and UNDP is to include toxic species in research, monitoring, regulation and mitigation. Most current treatment methods cannot meet the IMO standard, but ECOSEASAFE is aiming at meeting both current and new requirements.
Project context and objectives:
The ECOSEASAFE project is aimed at developing a BWT system complying with IMO's technology performance requirements based on free radicals generation with pulsed DC electric field without oxidation effect and impact on the chemistry of the water. To develop such a system there are technological challenges that require innovative developments including:
- generator for combining reversed pulsation of radicals and electrophoresis with instantaneous reversing of pulses to eliminate intermediate reactions that generate oxidants, and as result exclude any change in the chemistry of the ballast water;
- novel electrodes with innovative design composed of special alloys for maximised effect of generated reverse pulsed electric field in elimination of invasive organisms;
- intelligent process control system for control of frequency and amplitude as well as current density based on salinity, temperature and other parameters.
Deeper scientific knowledge is required to overcome the technical barriers associated with the innovations of the project and for attaining the technological objectives of the project. It has previously been proven to be difficult and complex in practice to design and produce a BWT system as a system must be effective under a wide range of challenging environmental conditions including variable temperature, salinity, nutrients and suspended solids. It must also function under difficult operational constraints including high flow-rates of ballast water pumps, large water volumes, and variable retention times (time ballast water is held in tanks). Treatment systems must be capable of eradicating a wide variety of different organisms ranging from viruses and microscopic bacteria, to free-swimming plankton, and must operate so as to minimise or prevent impairment of the water quality conditions of the receiving waters.
The objective for obtaining a deeper scientific knowledge as part of the project work, in order to overcome the above mentioned challenges are as follows:
- acquire enhanced knowledge on the mechanism of combined microbial inactivation by reverse pulsed electric field and electro-phoresis through extensive literature study and laboratory investigations;
- characterise impact of over potential properties for various materials and electrode alloys on inactivation of marine organisms through literature and laboratory investigations;
- enhanced understanding on formation of active oxidants under pulsed electric field generation;
- impact of water quality parameters on the performance of reverse pulsed electric field for elimination of target organisms.
For the development process of ECOSEASAFE, the participants have set three main technological objectives:
- Development of a novel generator for combining reversed DC pulsation of radicals with < 50 volts, and electrophoresis that enables instantaneous reversing of pulses and produces NO active oxidising substances.
- Development of an innovative configuration of electrodes with novel alloys that secure generation of radicals for attaining 99,99 % elimination of target organisms.
- Development of a ballast water treatment system with at least 30 % and 35 % lower capital and operation expenditures than the major competing technologies respectively
Project results:
Results from reporting period 1:
ECOSEASAFE addresses one of the major challenges with current state-of-the-art technologies, which is the formation of long-lived toxic substances both from UV and electrolytic treatment. It was initiated by the offshore water treatment technology company Sorbwater of Bergen, Norway. The work of the project to date is reported in deliverables 1 and 2. It is concluded that the objectives have been met so far. The tests which were run have confirmed the principle method of inactivating coliform bacteria by reverse pulsed DC. The hypothesis that harmful secondary products are not likely to be formed by reverse pulsed DC was also positively confirmed during tests.
For the purpose of testing and development of the electrode reactor, a dedicated pulse generator has been developed by Labor of Italy. The architecture of the alpha prototype pulse generator is composed by three main blocks:
(1) power supply section, with programmable output voltage;
(2) pulse shape section, where DC voltages are reversed and turned on-off according to the desired duty-cycle and frequency; and
(3) control unit, providing interface with the main control system and/or human manual intervention, and control signals for the other sections.
The control unit of the ECOSEASAFE pulse generator is based on a low-cost and reliable component suitable control systems with regular computational requirements. It reads the front panel inputs from human machine interface and generates signals accordingly for the power supply and the pulse shaper. The pulse generator can be connected to a PC via serial USB interface. A GUI has been developed to ensure users of the pulse generator are able to input values, start / stop the experiments, and eventually record / log the experimental data. It enables the operator to establish and monitor the communication with the pulse generator, monitor power supplies status and data, and to set voltage, current limitation, frequency and duty cycle of driving signals along with the start / stop experiment commands.
The active substances and mechanisms involved in inactivating coliform bacteria have been studied by the Norwegian Institute of Technology (TI), Oslo. All of the six pure metals which were tested showed an inactivating effect on E. coli at some level under the test conditions used, while only one metal was > 99 % effective at the low voltage conditions tested. The proof of principle of the mechanisms is clarified but there is a need of more in depth research. The levels of active chlorine oxidants did not exceed the background levels during the test run. It was proved during the testing that the likely oxidation products, i.e. free chlorine, were not produced in noticeable quantities. Using theory, it is deducted that this is due to the very short reaction time which is available for electrolysis of seawater by the reversing polarity technology. A prime goal was met; to avoid secondary products of chlorine while still inactivating coliform bacteria.
The over-potential properties of electrode materials were also studied theoretically. It is likely that high over-potentials are related to the reaction mechanisms at the electrode surface, depending on both the metal in question and the actual red-ox reaction. Some metals leak quite rapidly into seawater, thus providing a possible independent mechanism of inactivation. From a list of more than ten candidate metals, the list is now narrowed down to four metals selected for further testing as electrodes.
Continued work will focus upon electrode cell construction, materials testing, process control, integration and optimising, and on documentation of energy efficiency.
The consortium has concluded that the priority objectives of the ECOSEASAFE project have been met and is confident that the new technology will be successful both economically and socially.
Results from reporting period 2:
In the second reporting period, one main technical works were focused on development of the electrode cell and validating the functionality of the electrolysis process with reverse pulsed DC electric field using a new alloys that enhance the stability of the coating compared to the pure metal coatings used in the investigations carried out in reporting period 1. Four new test electrodes were manufactured with using new alloys.
In this connection, a test setup was built for testing the new electrodes at TI in relation to efficiency of inactivation. Functionality tests were carried out using seawater extracted from Oslo Fjord at 60 m depth. For formation of the reverse pulses, a modified pulse generator was built based on the original design. Coliform bacteria were used as target organisms during the studies where electrodes of all four alloys were installed in the test setup alternately for functionality tests with a flow rate of 1 l/min. In addition to killing effect of the system, investigations were carried out in relation to leakage of the oxide coatings, products of secondary reaction such as chlorates as well as impact of voltage, frequency, temperature and salinity variations.
The electrode coated with one of the alloys was taken forward for functionality tests of the ECOSEASAFE pilot plant (WP5) at the expense of the others that had either far higher leakage of the coating material or far lower inactivation effect. Formation of secondary oxidizing products is found to be negligible. The investigation showed that lower temperature (circa 10 °C) and high salinity (around 3,5 %) have a positive effect . The salinity effect can most likely be derived from the conductivity of the seawater compared to brackish water. But additional effects from chemical reactions or electrode erosion cannot completely be excluded. The temperature effect can be a sign of instable chemical products, which decay faster at higher temperatures and therefore have less effect on Coliforms.
In addition to these results, some experiments show tendencies for a positive effect at high frequencies (above 800 Hz), which can not completely be explained yet, as the assumed effective chemical products should be produced less at the higher the frequencies as presented in WP1. Following the laboratory studies, a new electrode configuration and reaction chamber has been designed for a capacity of 20 m3/h.
The other technical work was related to development of process control system. The project has established operational requirements of the process control unit based on the relationship between system settings and water quality parameters. Furthermore, a redox feedback loop has been designed for control of inactivation process that depends on the level of Redox generated by the treatment system. Required hardware and software environment of the process control system has been established and LabView based program has been developed. As a response to guidelines and requirements for installation of electrical equipment on board vessels, vital regulations and guidelines have been presented.
Integration of the ECOSEASAFE system consisting of a pre-filtration unit, the pulse generator, the process monitoring unit and the reaction chamber with the new electrode cell has been carried out from April to May 2012 at NIVA's test site for BWT technologies outside Oslo. Functionality tests of the integrated system were carried out from May to October 2012. Tests were carried out according to IMO Guidelines (G8) with respect to chemical and biological constituents of the test water. A total of four test cycles were completed with 10 different reactor settings. In the tests cultured surrogate species (>50 µm: Artemia fransiscana; 10 - 50 µm: Tetraselmis suecica) were added to fulfill the biological water quality criteria of the IMO guidelines.
The SME participants, lead by the Norwegian project initiator Sorbwater, expect that the project results will enable them to deliver their BWT system to a market. The consortium is working as a value chain, including everything from the ships designer StoGda, the electrode manufacturer OMT, the utility provider Bollfilter, the process control service company Fiskal and to the system provider Sorbwater.
Potential impact:
ECOSEASAFE will provide an answer to concerns and challenges of present ballast water treatment technologies by its new treatment technology, and expect take a considerable market share by 2013. Then the big rally on commissioning shipboard installations will have to start in order for ship owners to meet the deadline for their existing fleet, in practice by 2018.
The system will be cost-effective with negligible footprint, safe for crew and passengers on board, fully environmentally acceptable, and easy to install and operate without upsetting the structural integrity of the vessel. Very few BWT systems which have been installed on board ships have proven to be functional in practice. Therefore, the industry is hesitant to make investments, and it also await the consequences to IMO regulations of the higher standards suggested by the USA. However, all of these current State-of-the-art BWTs use strong oxidative means, i.e. UV radiation, conventional electrolysis or addition of chemicals for the inactivation of target species by oxidation. There are major concerns that secondary products will pose a risk to the environment following ballast water treatment, an issue addressed by two international conferences organised by IMO, UNDP and EU this year.
ECOSEASAFE has high societal and environmental impacts including reduced economic losses to society as a result of reductions in fisheries production including closing of fish farms, physical damages to costal infrastructure and industry due to fouling, impacts and even closure of recreational and tourism.
With assistance from the RTDs in the project period, the SMEs, have presented the benefits and features of the ECOSEASAFE project using in company events during development of the technology.
An extensive patent search has been carried out to assess the viability of protecting the identified exploitable results, and on patent has been found that comes in conflict with the foreground of ECOSEASAFE.
ECOSEASAFE has been presented at 17 exhibitions / conferences. In addition, a project web-site has been active since month 2 after the project started and dissemination brochures have been produced. The socio economic impacts of the project have been assessed in relation to the potential of positive effects from results of the project as given partly from the content of this report. The consortium has identified 6 exploitable results including exploitable new scientific knowledge and products as well as sectors where the exploitable results can be applicable. Half of the exploitable results are eligible for protection as required.
Development of BWT is emerging as a prosperous possibility for European ship supplier industry and will continue to develop as IMO's Technology Performance standards are progressively implemented and as new vessel types are built, following the adoption of the convention. The global market size for BWT solutions, with 50 k vessels to be equipped with treatment systems, is estimated to EUR 25 billion excluding installation and service between 2011 and 2020. The European ship supplier industry is dominated by SMEs.
Public website for ECOSEASAFE:
http://www.ECOSEASAFEproject.com
For further information, please contact:
Mezmur Shiferaw
Teknologisk Institutt
Mezmur.shiferaw@ti.no
Phone: +47-958-18829
- Teknologisk Institutt AS, RTD and coordinator of the project (Norway)
- Sorbwater Technology AS, SME (Norway)
- Omt Oberflächen- und Materialtechnologie (Germany)
- Fiskal Teknikk AS, SME (Norway)
- Stogda Ship Design and Engineering Sp z O.O SME (Poland)
- Boll Filter Protection Systems, OTH (Denmark)
- Labor S.r.l RTD (Italy)
The projects aim was to develop a new ballast water treatment (BWT) system using reverse pulsed direct current (DC) electric field, without affecting the water chemistry, and to be one of a few options for complying with the present and future IMO standard.
Invasive species have great economic and social implications. The annual cost associated with invasive aquatic species in the United States of America (USA) alone is estimated to more than USD 138 billion, whereas the global cost is more than USD 500 billion. Economic losses to society include reductions in fisheries production, including closing of fish farms, physical damages to costal infrastructure and industry due to fouling, impacts and even closure of recreational and tourism beaches. Secondary economic impacts include effect on human health by introduced pathogens and toxic chemical species. The primary ECOSEASAFE market driver is the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, adopted 13 February 2004 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which required effective control and management of ballast water, either through ballast water exchange (BWE) or ballast water treatment. However, BWE will be phased out as an acceptable method of complying with the convention during the period 2012 - 2016, depending on the vessel's ballast water capacity and delivery date. The convention contains a standard for effective removal or inactivation of the organisms potentially entrained in it, which is subject to revision to meet more stringent conditions suggested by USA. The future standard will likely fulfill the US demand of zero emissions of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, as well as toxic chemicals added or induced by the BWT. A goal by IMO and UNDP is to include toxic species in research, monitoring, regulation and mitigation. Most current treatment methods cannot meet the IMO standard, but ECOSEASAFE is aiming at meeting both current and new requirements.
Project context and objectives:
The ECOSEASAFE project is aimed at developing a BWT system complying with IMO's technology performance requirements based on free radicals generation with pulsed DC electric field without oxidation effect and impact on the chemistry of the water. To develop such a system there are technological challenges that require innovative developments including:
- generator for combining reversed pulsation of radicals and electrophoresis with instantaneous reversing of pulses to eliminate intermediate reactions that generate oxidants, and as result exclude any change in the chemistry of the ballast water;
- novel electrodes with innovative design composed of special alloys for maximised effect of generated reverse pulsed electric field in elimination of invasive organisms;
- intelligent process control system for control of frequency and amplitude as well as current density based on salinity, temperature and other parameters.
Deeper scientific knowledge is required to overcome the technical barriers associated with the innovations of the project and for attaining the technological objectives of the project. It has previously been proven to be difficult and complex in practice to design and produce a BWT system as a system must be effective under a wide range of challenging environmental conditions including variable temperature, salinity, nutrients and suspended solids. It must also function under difficult operational constraints including high flow-rates of ballast water pumps, large water volumes, and variable retention times (time ballast water is held in tanks). Treatment systems must be capable of eradicating a wide variety of different organisms ranging from viruses and microscopic bacteria, to free-swimming plankton, and must operate so as to minimise or prevent impairment of the water quality conditions of the receiving waters.
The objective for obtaining a deeper scientific knowledge as part of the project work, in order to overcome the above mentioned challenges are as follows:
- acquire enhanced knowledge on the mechanism of combined microbial inactivation by reverse pulsed electric field and electro-phoresis through extensive literature study and laboratory investigations;
- characterise impact of over potential properties for various materials and electrode alloys on inactivation of marine organisms through literature and laboratory investigations;
- enhanced understanding on formation of active oxidants under pulsed electric field generation;
- impact of water quality parameters on the performance of reverse pulsed electric field for elimination of target organisms.
For the development process of ECOSEASAFE, the participants have set three main technological objectives:
- Development of a novel generator for combining reversed DC pulsation of radicals with < 50 volts, and electrophoresis that enables instantaneous reversing of pulses and produces NO active oxidising substances.
- Development of an innovative configuration of electrodes with novel alloys that secure generation of radicals for attaining 99,99 % elimination of target organisms.
- Development of a ballast water treatment system with at least 30 % and 35 % lower capital and operation expenditures than the major competing technologies respectively
Project results:
Results from reporting period 1:
ECOSEASAFE addresses one of the major challenges with current state-of-the-art technologies, which is the formation of long-lived toxic substances both from UV and electrolytic treatment. It was initiated by the offshore water treatment technology company Sorbwater of Bergen, Norway. The work of the project to date is reported in deliverables 1 and 2. It is concluded that the objectives have been met so far. The tests which were run have confirmed the principle method of inactivating coliform bacteria by reverse pulsed DC. The hypothesis that harmful secondary products are not likely to be formed by reverse pulsed DC was also positively confirmed during tests.
For the purpose of testing and development of the electrode reactor, a dedicated pulse generator has been developed by Labor of Italy. The architecture of the alpha prototype pulse generator is composed by three main blocks:
(1) power supply section, with programmable output voltage;
(2) pulse shape section, where DC voltages are reversed and turned on-off according to the desired duty-cycle and frequency; and
(3) control unit, providing interface with the main control system and/or human manual intervention, and control signals for the other sections.
The control unit of the ECOSEASAFE pulse generator is based on a low-cost and reliable component suitable control systems with regular computational requirements. It reads the front panel inputs from human machine interface and generates signals accordingly for the power supply and the pulse shaper. The pulse generator can be connected to a PC via serial USB interface. A GUI has been developed to ensure users of the pulse generator are able to input values, start / stop the experiments, and eventually record / log the experimental data. It enables the operator to establish and monitor the communication with the pulse generator, monitor power supplies status and data, and to set voltage, current limitation, frequency and duty cycle of driving signals along with the start / stop experiment commands.
The active substances and mechanisms involved in inactivating coliform bacteria have been studied by the Norwegian Institute of Technology (TI), Oslo. All of the six pure metals which were tested showed an inactivating effect on E. coli at some level under the test conditions used, while only one metal was > 99 % effective at the low voltage conditions tested. The proof of principle of the mechanisms is clarified but there is a need of more in depth research. The levels of active chlorine oxidants did not exceed the background levels during the test run. It was proved during the testing that the likely oxidation products, i.e. free chlorine, were not produced in noticeable quantities. Using theory, it is deducted that this is due to the very short reaction time which is available for electrolysis of seawater by the reversing polarity technology. A prime goal was met; to avoid secondary products of chlorine while still inactivating coliform bacteria.
The over-potential properties of electrode materials were also studied theoretically. It is likely that high over-potentials are related to the reaction mechanisms at the electrode surface, depending on both the metal in question and the actual red-ox reaction. Some metals leak quite rapidly into seawater, thus providing a possible independent mechanism of inactivation. From a list of more than ten candidate metals, the list is now narrowed down to four metals selected for further testing as electrodes.
Continued work will focus upon electrode cell construction, materials testing, process control, integration and optimising, and on documentation of energy efficiency.
The consortium has concluded that the priority objectives of the ECOSEASAFE project have been met and is confident that the new technology will be successful both economically and socially.
Results from reporting period 2:
In the second reporting period, one main technical works were focused on development of the electrode cell and validating the functionality of the electrolysis process with reverse pulsed DC electric field using a new alloys that enhance the stability of the coating compared to the pure metal coatings used in the investigations carried out in reporting period 1. Four new test electrodes were manufactured with using new alloys.
In this connection, a test setup was built for testing the new electrodes at TI in relation to efficiency of inactivation. Functionality tests were carried out using seawater extracted from Oslo Fjord at 60 m depth. For formation of the reverse pulses, a modified pulse generator was built based on the original design. Coliform bacteria were used as target organisms during the studies where electrodes of all four alloys were installed in the test setup alternately for functionality tests with a flow rate of 1 l/min. In addition to killing effect of the system, investigations were carried out in relation to leakage of the oxide coatings, products of secondary reaction such as chlorates as well as impact of voltage, frequency, temperature and salinity variations.
The electrode coated with one of the alloys was taken forward for functionality tests of the ECOSEASAFE pilot plant (WP5) at the expense of the others that had either far higher leakage of the coating material or far lower inactivation effect. Formation of secondary oxidizing products is found to be negligible. The investigation showed that lower temperature (circa 10 °C) and high salinity (around 3,5 %) have a positive effect . The salinity effect can most likely be derived from the conductivity of the seawater compared to brackish water. But additional effects from chemical reactions or electrode erosion cannot completely be excluded. The temperature effect can be a sign of instable chemical products, which decay faster at higher temperatures and therefore have less effect on Coliforms.
In addition to these results, some experiments show tendencies for a positive effect at high frequencies (above 800 Hz), which can not completely be explained yet, as the assumed effective chemical products should be produced less at the higher the frequencies as presented in WP1. Following the laboratory studies, a new electrode configuration and reaction chamber has been designed for a capacity of 20 m3/h.
The other technical work was related to development of process control system. The project has established operational requirements of the process control unit based on the relationship between system settings and water quality parameters. Furthermore, a redox feedback loop has been designed for control of inactivation process that depends on the level of Redox generated by the treatment system. Required hardware and software environment of the process control system has been established and LabView based program has been developed. As a response to guidelines and requirements for installation of electrical equipment on board vessels, vital regulations and guidelines have been presented.
Integration of the ECOSEASAFE system consisting of a pre-filtration unit, the pulse generator, the process monitoring unit and the reaction chamber with the new electrode cell has been carried out from April to May 2012 at NIVA's test site for BWT technologies outside Oslo. Functionality tests of the integrated system were carried out from May to October 2012. Tests were carried out according to IMO Guidelines (G8) with respect to chemical and biological constituents of the test water. A total of four test cycles were completed with 10 different reactor settings. In the tests cultured surrogate species (>50 µm: Artemia fransiscana; 10 - 50 µm: Tetraselmis suecica) were added to fulfill the biological water quality criteria of the IMO guidelines.
The SME participants, lead by the Norwegian project initiator Sorbwater, expect that the project results will enable them to deliver their BWT system to a market. The consortium is working as a value chain, including everything from the ships designer StoGda, the electrode manufacturer OMT, the utility provider Bollfilter, the process control service company Fiskal and to the system provider Sorbwater.
Potential impact:
ECOSEASAFE will provide an answer to concerns and challenges of present ballast water treatment technologies by its new treatment technology, and expect take a considerable market share by 2013. Then the big rally on commissioning shipboard installations will have to start in order for ship owners to meet the deadline for their existing fleet, in practice by 2018.
The system will be cost-effective with negligible footprint, safe for crew and passengers on board, fully environmentally acceptable, and easy to install and operate without upsetting the structural integrity of the vessel. Very few BWT systems which have been installed on board ships have proven to be functional in practice. Therefore, the industry is hesitant to make investments, and it also await the consequences to IMO regulations of the higher standards suggested by the USA. However, all of these current State-of-the-art BWTs use strong oxidative means, i.e. UV radiation, conventional electrolysis or addition of chemicals for the inactivation of target species by oxidation. There are major concerns that secondary products will pose a risk to the environment following ballast water treatment, an issue addressed by two international conferences organised by IMO, UNDP and EU this year.
ECOSEASAFE has high societal and environmental impacts including reduced economic losses to society as a result of reductions in fisheries production including closing of fish farms, physical damages to costal infrastructure and industry due to fouling, impacts and even closure of recreational and tourism.
With assistance from the RTDs in the project period, the SMEs, have presented the benefits and features of the ECOSEASAFE project using in company events during development of the technology.
An extensive patent search has been carried out to assess the viability of protecting the identified exploitable results, and on patent has been found that comes in conflict with the foreground of ECOSEASAFE.
ECOSEASAFE has been presented at 17 exhibitions / conferences. In addition, a project web-site has been active since month 2 after the project started and dissemination brochures have been produced. The socio economic impacts of the project have been assessed in relation to the potential of positive effects from results of the project as given partly from the content of this report. The consortium has identified 6 exploitable results including exploitable new scientific knowledge and products as well as sectors where the exploitable results can be applicable. Half of the exploitable results are eligible for protection as required.
Development of BWT is emerging as a prosperous possibility for European ship supplier industry and will continue to develop as IMO's Technology Performance standards are progressively implemented and as new vessel types are built, following the adoption of the convention. The global market size for BWT solutions, with 50 k vessels to be equipped with treatment systems, is estimated to EUR 25 billion excluding installation and service between 2011 and 2020. The European ship supplier industry is dominated by SMEs.
Public website for ECOSEASAFE:
http://www.ECOSEASAFEproject.com
For further information, please contact:
Mezmur Shiferaw
Teknologisk Institutt
Mezmur.shiferaw@ti.no
Phone: +47-958-18829