BALPURE Receives U.S. Coast Guard’s AMS Certification

The IMO Type-Approved BALPURE® ballast water treatment system from Severn Trent De Nora has become one of the first ballast water treatment technologies to receive the United States Coast Guard’s (USCG) Alternate Management System (AMS) certification.

AMS certification identifies an IMO Type-Approved system that meets the USCG requirements. Ships are required to have onboard ballast water treatment systems that prevent invasive species from being shipped into U.S. waters. The AMS certification has specifically approved the use of BALPURE, which complies with IECEx Classification, in hazardous areas on board vessels. Severn Trent De Nora has sold and delivered 20 BALPURE units since it received its IMO Type Approval in July 2011.

As part of the USCG’s extensive review process for AMS, Severn Trent De Nora submitted: Basic Approval documentation, Final Approval documentation, shipboard test data, Operations & Maintenance manual, detailed drawings for each BALPURE System (flow sheets, P&ID, general arrangement), and Bill of Materials (BoM) for each system including vendor technical literature and certification for all equipment.

The AMS submission involved a concurrent submittal for Type Approval to the USCG. This is being reviewed in parallel and will be held to different approval standards than IMO standards, including ETV test protocol by USCG certified test facilities. USCG has not published all the requirements for the Type Approval review process which will be determined in the next few years.

BALPURE features proven electrolytic disinfection technology, ease of installation and operation, minimal maintenance and low operating costs for both retrofits and newbuilds. Its slip stream treatment approach, where approximately one percent of the total ballast water flow is used to generate the hypochlorite disinfection solution, enables remote mounting away from the main ballast line. The slip stream treatment approach, coupled with a design that requires treatment only during the uptake of the ballasting cycle, offers significantly reduced power requirements when compared to competing technologies – ensuring low operational costs. BALPURE offers a virtually maintenance-free approach to ballast water treatment through the use of proprietary self-cleaning electrodes that eliminate the need for time-consuming chemical and mechanical maintenance.

Severn Trent De Nora will be promoting BALPURE along with its MARINER OMNIPURE Series M55 marine sewage treatment system at the OTC exhibition in Houston, USA from 6–9 May, Nor-Shipping in Norway from 4–7 June and Marintec in China from 3–6 December.

Press Release, April 17, 2013