Coldharbour Marine shortlisted for IChemE Global ‘Water Management and Supply’ Award.

The shortlists for the IChemE Global Awards 2015 have been announced with over 100 organisations achieving the final stage in one of 16 categories of award. Winners will be announced on 5 November 2015.  The IChemE Global Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and achievement in the chemical, process and biochemical industries.

Coldharbour Marine competes against 9 fellow organisations for the Global Water Management and Supply Award representing Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the US, the UK and Singapore. The winner will be announced at the Hilton, Birmingham Metropole, UK at an event hosted by Steph McGovern – BBC business and finance journalist, herself an award winning engineer. A record-breaking 500 applicants from over 40 countries entered for an award.

The Coldharbour Marine entry was submitted by IChemE member Prof. Bruno Pollet, Head of R&D. He said: “There can be no better feeling than to receive an award from your peers. That is what makes the IChemE Global Awards so very special and sought after. We will keep our fingers crossed for success in November. “

Water Management and Supply Award Finalists

• ‘Marine ballast water treatment system’, Coldharbour Marine, UK
• ‘Googong water recycling plant’, MWH Global; Googong Township Proprietary Ltd; Mirvac; Canberra Investment Corporation, Australia
• ‘Separating oil from water’, Ohio State University, USA
• ‘Membrane for heavy metal treatment’, National University of Singapore, Singapore
• ‘Low temperature ZLD evaporator crystallizer’, Saltworks Technologies Inc, Canada
• ‘Watergy program’, Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Saudi Arabia
• ‘Shrink-fit sewage treatment in Heritage Dock’, United Utilities; GCA, UK
• ‘3D printed microbial water sensor’, University of Bath, UK
• ‘Xeros polymer bead cleaning system’, Xerox Technology Group plc, UK

The IChemE (Institution of Chemical Engineers) is the hub for chemical, biochemical and process engineering professionals worldwide. With a growing global membership of 42,000, the Institution is at the heart of the process community, promoting competence and a commitment to best practice, advancing the discipline for the benefit of society, encouraging young people in science and engineering and supporting the professional development of its members.

Coldharbour Marine will also compete in the ‘Innovative Product’ category, competing against 8 other companies (4 UK based, 4 Worldwide)

Managing re-growth in ballast water

Re-growth – is it a problem in ballast water treatment?

Andrew Marshall, CEO, Coldharbour Marine Ltd.  July 2015

Andrew Marshall

If we assume that a commercial vessel carries 60,000 tonnes of ballast water and that there are thousands of commercial vessels at sea, there could be in excess of 7 billion tonnes of ballast water being shipped around the world at any one time to be discharged into waters far from whence it came. Ballast water is an organic soup of seeds, spores, plankton and bacteria together with the eggs and larvae of larger creatures.  Marine biologists reckon there might be 7,000 different species being carried and some have successfully taken advantage of new environments.

Ballast water is thought to be the vector that brought Chinese mitten crabs to Europe, Asian kelp to southern Australia and Mediterranean mussels to the coast of South Africa, sometimes with disastrous consequences for the native marine eco systems.

Recognition of ballast water as the carrier of potential invasive organisms is the basis of the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Ballast Water Treatment Convention, in development since 2004, soon to be ratified by the required number of states representing at least 35% of world shipping tonnage.

The standards against which ballast water quality is to be measured have been established by the IMO and endorsed and adopted by various national and regional authorities. For example, the US Coast Guard (USCG) will require ships to have Ballast Water Treatment Systems (BWTS) which are IMO approved and must meet the following standards:-

1. For organisms ≥50 microns in minimum dimension, a discharge of fewer than 10 organisms per cubic meter of ballast water.
2. For organisms ≤ 50 microns and ≥10 microns, a discharge of fewer than 10 organisms per millilitre (mL) of ballast water.

The warm, dark, enclosed environment inside a ballast tank acts as an ideal bacterial/algal incubator. Even newly manufactured ballast tanks are far from sterile so the standard also limits the level of discharge of three indicator microbe species: –

1. toxigenic Vibrio cholera (producing fewer than 1 cfu (colony forming unit) per 100 mL),
2. Escherichia coli (producing fewer than 250 cfu per 100 mL)
3. intestinal enterococci, producing fewer than 100 cfu per 100mL.

Escherichia coli  An indicator microbe species         

Vibrio cholera  An indicator microbe species

Most commercial BWM treatments start with the physical removal, usually by filtration, of solid particles larger than 50 ψm followed by either a physical or a chemical treatment. These are summarized by Lloyds Register at (www.lr.org/bwm).

There has been little peer reviewed academic research into the effectiveness of the various Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS). Peter Stehouwer of the Royal Netherlands Institute for the Sea has compared 6 different ballast water treatments and demonstrated that although microorganism populations are heavily depleted by BWMS, no system discharges sterile water. Since BWMS removes the organisms that prey on and control algae and bacteria, copepods and phytoplankton for example, once they are removed any small but living residual microbes regrow unhindered feeding on the organic remains of dead predators.  Furthermore, regrowth usually results in far larger populations in the discharge ballast water than originally existed. These high concentrations permit the emergence of totally new strains as organisms exploit the genetic exchange mechanisms that result in antibiotic resistance. His research indicated that different BWMS have different impacts on different microbes.

UV treatment reduces the microbial population over time with the minimum population being reached after 5 to 8 days then the population starts to regrow reaching a higher steady state concentration after 12 to 15 days in tank. This implies that, particularly over long voyages, ballast water should be UV treated at the beginning and on discharge to be sure the discharge has minimal bacterial concentrations.

Stehouwer showed that chemical treatments kill microbes effectively but have the serious drawback of active chemicals needing neutralization before discharge. This can be difficult unless ships carry technicians capable of the calculations required to accurately compute the quantity of neutralizing chemical required.

Owners may alternatively select a continuous in-tank, in-voyage BWMS option taking advantage of three different treatment strategies starting once the vessel has completed loading and left the terminal. These reduce the bacterial load over time and deliver clean ballast water at voyage end with minimal levels of active microorganisms. With no active ingredients and able to operate in any type of water these systems offer significant advantages to those facing long ballast leg journey times.

Should we worry about these remaining viable organisms? As early as the C19th, Charles Darwin realised that for an invasive organism to successfully establish itself, there needed to be

1) a sufficiently large number of organisms introduced –  propagule size.

2) a number of discrete introductions –propagule number.

The resulting combination – ‘the propagule pressure’ – explains why some introduced species can persist while others do not. Species regularly introduced in large quantities are said to have a high propagule pressure and are more likely to survive than those rarely introduced and in small numbers, said to have a small propagule pressure. The IMO standard accepts that there will be some live organisms left after treatment so the standard has been set at a level designed to minimize any resultant propagule pressure.

If the IMO ambition of preventing the successful introduction of new species is to be achieved in practice, small propagules (minimal numbers of live organisms) should be discharged.

More information about the IMO Ballast Water Management Convention can be found here http://bit.ly/1JiE0bF

More information about Coldharbour Marine’s Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS) is available at www.coldharbourmarine.com.

Ultrasound – how to make mayonaise

How do you mix oil and water?

Oil and water don’t mix, right?  In fact oil and water can be efficiently mixed using Power Ultrasound.  For example, mayonnaise is an emulsion made by mixing oil and water-based ingredients achieved by using Power Ultrasound at around 20 kHz.

Power Ultrasound is an exciting and ‘sound’ technology as it is a safe, cost-effective (low equipment costs and shorter industrial process time), environmentally friendly (less use of hazardous chemicals) and energy efficient technology compared to other conventional methods. Power Ultrasound frequencies are from 20 – 100 kHz – above the range of human hearing.  At much higher frequencies of 5-10 MHz, ultrasound is used in medical applications for scanning during pregnancy, for example.

Effects of Power Ultrasound and Cavitation

Power Ultrasound used in liquid systems causes

• a zone of extreme ‘mixing’ close to the ultrasonic source (i.e. the ultrasonic transducer),
• degassing,
• surface cleaning and pitting (erosion),
• an increase in bulk temperature.

It’s for these reasons that low frequency and high energy ultrasonic waves are used in ultrasonic cleaning, drilling, soldering, chemical processes and emulsification.  The use of power ultrasound has found wide applications in the chemical, water, food and processing industries as it offers remarkable advantages on various physical, chemical and biochemical processes, such as:

1. Increased mass and heat transfer due to very efficient ‘stirring’
2. Improved chemical rates and yields due to high stirring and production of radicals (via sonolysis)
3. Degassing of fluids of various viscosities caused by intense agitation
4. Improved polymeric, ceramic and metallic surfaces (e.g. catalysts) due to efficient surface cleaning induced by the implosion of cavitation bubbles
5. Increased cell disruption/destruction of bacteria/microbes in contaminated waters due cavitation bubbles implosion

When a fluid is subjected to power ultrasound, tiny bubbles/cavities or cavitation bubbles are produced.  These cavitation bubbles implode (undergo a very short and violent collapse within the fluid) generating local ‘hotspots’ of high energy, leading to jets of liquid of high velocity within the fluid.  Cavitation was first reported in 1895 by when it was observed that the propeller of a submarine eroded over short operating times, caused by collapsing bubbles induced by hydrodynamic cavitation in turn generating intense pressure and temperature gradients.

Industrial Ultrasonic Applications

Ultrasonic cleaning is probably the most common and known application of ultrasound, however there are several areas where power ultrasound has been successfully employed as an effective industrial Process Intensification (PI) such as:

• Water and soil remediation
• cell disruption/destruction of bacteria/microbes, organics and polymers and heavy metals removal,
• Manufacturing of food ingredients and products
• emulsification of oil/water based fluids (e.g. mayonnaise), flavourings and vitamins extraction,
• Nano-sized materials production (e.g. pharma and NanoTech),
• Polymerisation process,
• Drilling, soldering, cutting and plastic welding,
• Surface treatment and preparation prior to plating and electroplating, metal finishing and precision engineering (e.g. the aerospace industry)

Professor Bruno G. POLLET BSc (Hons) MSc PhD AHEA AFIChemE MRSSAf FRSC