Techcross expects to submit an application for its ECS-Hychlor ballast water management system (BWMS) following completion of its shipboard tests, expected to end during Q1 2018. Techcross director of customer satisfaction Mike Lee said earlier this week that the company had prioritised its full-flow Electro-Cleen BWMS, for which it submitted an application at the end of October.
Mr Lee was contributing to a discussion on BWTT’s LinkedIn group about filtration arrangements for BWMS, sparked by an observation by a representative of another manufacturer that the Electro-Cleen system’s application indicated that it was an electrolysis-only system with no mention of filtration.
Norway-based BWMS consultant Jad Mouawad suggested that there could be situations in which a ship’s standard-fit strainers might provide sufficient pretreatment but he raised a number of questions about that approach and wondered where the line would be drawn to distinguish between a filter and a strainer.
But Mr Lee explained that, of its two electrolysis systems, Electro-Cleen treats the full flow without a fine mesh filter and ECS-Hychlor uses side stream injection with a fine mesh filter. “Techcross has intended to develop a BWMS without fine mesh filter ever since [we] started the development in 2004 as we did not have enough confidence in fine mesh [of about] 50um for long-time use.” He pointed out that, in use, a vessel might operate its BWMS for around 20 hours whereas the land-based test “only operates for one hour for 300m3/hr capacity.”
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