Abstract:
Ballast water-shifts across the globe have been a major cause of ecological imbalance.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has actively taken regulated measures to minimise
the species shift by adopting the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’
Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004. Since then, vessels have been increasingly practising water
exchanges. Exchanges are seen to be not completely effective. This regime has to give way for effective
Ballast Water Treatment to keep up with IMO requirements as also the stricter requirements stipulated
by some US ports. As full ratifcation of the Treaty is pending, many treatment technologies have
been emerging. A review of some representative systems is presented in this paper. Brief analyses
of the systems available on date and those awaiting approval have been carried out. Most of these
systems use a pre-treatment employing physical fltration and in the later part treat the ballast water
with physical and chemical disinfection methods. An effective method for species reduction has been
to employ chemicals. In terms of capital cost, foot print and power requirements, chemical solutions
fare better than the physical disinfection methods. However, it is feared that chemicals might cause
greater harm to the environment. Physical disinfection methods have lesser issues than the usage of
chemicals. Considering the long-term harm of chemicals, a fltration system in combination with heat
treatment is suggested. Such an attempt might even emerge as a viable option before the IMO deadline
of 2016.
