Greentech Lead Europe: Siemens announced that its Sicure
ballast water management system has received the final approval from the
Maritime Environmental Protection Committee of the United Nations’
International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The final approval needs deep-sea vessels to operate
IMO-approved ballast water management systems. The objective is to avoid the
spread of alien aquatic organisms and pathogens carried in untreated ballast
water.
The IMO directive will come into force in the future and
will entail retrofitting approximately 50,000 sea-going vessels worldwide.
The IMO confirms the new Siemens ballast water management
system’s environmental compatibility and compliance with the safety standards.
The Sicure system is a further development of the Chloropac system, which has
seen 35 years of successful ship-board use for treating seawater cooling
circuits. The electrolytic system produces hypochlorite from the salt contained
in seawater, according to a media report.
The Siemens’ Sicure system consists of a filtration stage
followed by electrochlorination and a dosing unit which precisely meters the
addition of hypochlorite. Electrochlorination occurs in a sidestream of the
ballast water main. About one percent of the ballast water to be treated is
carried through the system’s electrolysis cells. This makes for small system
components which are easily integrated into existing vessels.
The Sicure system is used for treating cooling water
circuits on board. Since ballasting occurs only during short periods in a
ship’s lifetime, conventional ballast water systems remain idle 95 percent of
the time. By contrast, the Sicure system can be used all the time, eliminating
the need for an additional system for treating cooling water.
Recently, Siemens received
a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 56 contract to provide
Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations to the U.S. Government.