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A reliable, effective ballast water management system through unique in situ biocide production

Objective

The transfer of invasive species via ballast water in shipping is a continuing threat to biodiversity and human health. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) state untreated ballast water is the second biggest environmental issue after global warming, causing damage of ~$100 billion p.a globally.

To address this, recent IMO legislation requires all vessels to fit an approved Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) by 2024. Ship builders and operators are thus seeking compliant BWMS which also meet operational needs such as high efficacy, reliability and low operating costs.

Unfortunately, current products, mostly based on Ultraviolet and Electrochlorination, suffer from poor disinfection and low reliability. In fact, almost half of all installed systems are not operational or not performing to standard at any given time, according to The American Bureau of Shipping and major ship owners. Emerging technologies such as Boron Doped Diamond (BDD) electrochlorination can dramatically increase efficacy but suffer from delamination and clogging caused by the byproducts of electrolyzing seawater.

Innovative wastewater treatment specialist Atana has developed XCell, a unique patent-protected electrochlorination cell to resolve issues in current state of the art systems. It uses novel, structured BDD electrodes which deliver a 40% more efficacious, non-corrosive product, Hydrus75, which is used and trusted globally.

Our objective is to transfer this technology to exploit the market opportunity in the BWMS sector. Production is currently shore-based and we need to demonstrate on board production to the marine market. This Phase 1 project will validate the market opportunity for XCell in the ballast water sector and confirm our potential to generate cumulative revenues of €90 million and cumulative net profits of €13 million over 6 years (7 x ROI on EC Phase 2 investment), creating 204 highly skilled jobs, supporting compliance and boosting Europe’s blue growth.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017

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Coordinator

ATANA LTD
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
78 LOUGHBOROUGH ROAD QUORN LOUGHBOROUGH
LE12 8DX LEICESTER
United Kingdom

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
East Midlands (England) Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire Leicestershire CC and Rutland
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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