Bawat, a Danish manufacturer of ballast water treatment systems, has been granted IMO Type Approval for its technology. The certification[ds_preview] has been issued by Lloyd’s Register on behalf of the Danish Maritime Authority and makes the system one of the first to be tested and issued with approval under the new toughened mandatory requirements of the IMO’s BWMS Code, officially known as the »Code for Approval of Ballast Water Management Systems«. Bawat’s system uses a vessel’s own waste heat from the main engine or other heat sources to neutralise through pasteurisation any organisms in the ballast water. It does not require any chemicals, filters or energy consuming ultra-violet lights. By using pasteurisation the system can be used to treat ballast water in all water conditions, regardless of salinity, turbidity and temperatures, and has no holding time restrictions. Water is treated in one pass only, the company stated. All components such as the heat exchangers and pumps are standard ones found onboard vessels today, and therefore well known to crew. A third defining difference of the Bawat system compared with others is the ability to do in-voyage treatment, thus a vessel’s cargo and ballasting operations are not impacted due to slow water treatment.
