UPDATED: TeamTec withdraws its Avitalis BWMS

TeamTec has withdrawn its Avitalis ballast water management system (BWMS) following storage tests on its active substance, Peraclean Ocean. In a joint statement last week (24 May), the Norwegian manufacturer and Evonik, the German chemical company that produces Peraclean Ocean, said that results from long-term storage tests “generated doubts about sufficient product stability of Peraclean Ocean under marine conditions.”

These doubts emerged from experience based on three full-scale installations operating in different marine environments, the two companies said. They described the decision as being proactive, “to prevent any incompliances of shipowners in meeting the ballast water discharge standards under certain circumstances.”

The material is a marine version of the widely used Peraclean biocide, which is a stabilised mixture of peracetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, water and acetic acid. No other grades of the product are affected, Evonik advised BWTT in a statement today (1 June).

It explained that both peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide can be decomposed by impurities such as metal dust or dissolved metals but Peraclean Ocean had been developed to ensure high product stability.

However, “we had to learn from trials under the harsh maritime conditions that we cannot entirely ensure that the product can under all possible circumstances reliably keep the concentration of the active substances within our high standard specification over an extended period of time in the onboard storage tank,” the company’s statement said. 

“In all other aspects, the Avitalis BWMS performed very well and achieved the D2 discharge standards in land- and shipboard testing with no residual toxicity in the treated ballast water discharge,” it added.

No details have been published about the circumstances of the tests that revealed the problem, but in October last year, TeamTec reported a fifth consecutive land-based test in readiness for an application for US Coast Guard type-approval, which it had hoped to submit by mid-2017. At that time, it planned to begin shipboard testing in early 2017 on the 868 teu feeder container vessel Helmut, operated by Reederei Jens & Waller.