Marine Ballast Water Management System - Duplex Sintered Stainless Steel Filter

Ballast water treatment (and filtration) made by sintered stainless steel screen filter is an application exposed to an array of different water conditions and is also susceptible to challenging operating conditions as maritime vessels travel the world. Water quality and density at uptake can vary dramatically depending on the season and the location with water exhibiting profiles typically found in freshwater, brackish water and seawater.

Salinity levels in ballast water treatment (BWT) systems are often in the range of 3.1%–3.5%, though they can be even higher in some regions. These variances, along with changing water temperatures, result in a broad gamut of organic matter requiring filtration prior to treatment. Species are typically segregated into two bands; Phytoplankton (10–50 micron) and Zooplankton (>50 micron).

Many organisms have evolved and adapted to a capacity where they can endure stressful environments such as low dissolved oxygen concentration, desiccation, or toxins. Thus, ballast water filtration and separation is the best way to eliminate these organisms, as well as other sediment, prior to a main disinfection treatment. In order to meet proposed US standards anticipated to be 100x more restrictive than IMO specifications, this type of ballast water filtration is essential.

Ballast Water sintered stainless steel screen filter has been proposed as a ballast treatment in both shipboard and shore-based applications. Operated at the port of origin, filtration can dramatically reduce densities of larger plankton and other taxa in the ballast intake stream without generating chemical or thermal residuals. It also could enhance or complement performance of biocidal treatment systems.