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MERC ER02-10
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1.0 MERC Background and Objectives
The Maritime Environmental Resource Center (MERC) is a State of Maryland initiative
that provides test facilities, information, and decision tools to address key environmental issues
facing the international maritime industry. The Center’s primary focus is to evaluate the
mechanical and biological efficacy, associated costs, and logistical aspects of ballast water
treatment systems and the economic impacts of ballast water regulations and management
approaches. A full description of MERC’s structure, products, and services can be found at
www.maritime-enviro.org.
To address the need for effective, safe, and reliable ballast water treatment systems to
prevent the introduction of non-native species, MERC has developed as a partnership between
the Maryland Port Administration (MPA), Chesapeake Biological Laboratory/ University of
Maryland Center for Environmental Science (CBL/UMCES), U.S. Maritime Administration
(MARAD), Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), and University of Maryland
(UMD) to provide independent performance testing and to help facilitate the transition of new
treatment technologies to shipboard implementation and operations.
This report describes the MERC evaluation of the Siemens SiCURE
TM
Ballast Water
Management System through objective and quality assured land-based testing (dockside at a
flow rate of 200m
3
/hr). The goal of this evaluation was to provide shipping lines, regulators,
classification societies, and flag states with an independent and credible assessment of treatment
performance under realistic conditions. Therefore, the data and information on performance
characteristics covers legitimate information to meet the evaluation's objective, and performance
is presented in a way to allow for comparison against the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and
Sediments (2004), Regulation D-2
Ballast Water Performance Standard
.
2.0 Description of the Siemens Ballast Water Management System
The Siemens Water Technologies SiCURE
TM
Ballast Water Management System
(BWMS) utilizes a combination of treatment methods including physical separation and a
proprietary, on-demand treatment with biocides produced in-situ from seawater without the
addition of chemicals. This proprietary technology is based on the maritime industry-proven
Chloropac® biofouling control technology that was first developed in the early 1970s and
installed on over 2,500 vessels.
The SiCURE
TM
system employs electrolysis of seawater to produce a dilute solution of
sodium hypochlorite as an Active Substance that is injected into the ballast piping. The
proprietary controls regulate the system's parameters to provide only as much Active Substance
as required to achieve the necessary level of disinfection. This approach is aimed at eliminating
over-chlorination, associated risks of corrosion, and generation of disinfection by-products.
The specific SiCURE
TM
unit tested as part of this MERC land-based evaluation was a
prototype designed to land-based evaluation conditions with shipboard implementation
considerations. For this land based test, the water is first filtered through a 40 micron
BallastSafe™ BSFc Automatic Electric Filter, Model BSFc-H-1.6 prior to treatment. The
sintered stainless steel screen technology enables it to remove zooplankton. BallastSafe’s filter
features continuous cleaning of large volumes of dirt during ballasting without interruption, and
a reversible screw system for cleaning of the entire screen surface. This system requires the