Savvy ship operators know that the right filter is key to not only complying with IMO and USCG regulations but also to ensure that their ship can sail and ballast anywhere, in addition to costing or saving a ship money by how long it takes to filter and fill a ship’s ballast water tanks.
Shipowners and operators regularly ask Mr. Louis Peperzak (Technical Manager Ballast Water Services at Control Union) and his colleagues: “How am I supposed to trust that a ballast water filter will work in severe circumstances?” they continue: “since IMO regulations account for 50 mg/L of TSS but in Shanghai Harbor, TSS concentrations can reach up to 1,000 mg/L?”
They turned to Control Union specifically as they are a highly respected 3rd party certifier of various maritime QA/QC evaluations, including for ballast water management systems. The Control Union as a whole is a collection of international companies that offer certification in various industries, including marine and ballast water.
What is the ‘Shanghai Test’?
This is how Control Union came to create their ‘Shanghai Filter Test’, which seeks to mimic the muddy, turbid waters of the popular Shanghai Port. If a ballast filter could manage to filter the 1,000 TSS mg/L of suspended solids that can be found in the waters of Shanghai without clogging, then they could be confidant that their ship can sail to and ballast in any port without fear that the filter would clog from water with high total suspended solids (TSS).
The test puts water with mud the similar consistency and particle size distribution as the mud found in the Port of Shanghai through the filter at increasing amounts until the filter has less than 5% outflow and effectively clogs. Since the Port of Shanghai can have a maximum TSS of 1,000 mg/L that is the benchmark Control Union has set for whether a filter passes the test or not. If a filter can work at 1,000 mg/L without clogging, it is considered to have passed the test.
A clogged ballast water filter is an expensive and time-consuming problem for shipowners. A clogged filter means:
- The ballasting process must stop while the filter is cleaned, halting loading or unloading of cargo from a ship;
- Seafarers must invest manpower and spend time cleaning the filter instead of attending to their other important, onboard duties;
- More time spent in port, having to pay port fees, and time lost on the delivery route.
If a shipowner can know that a ballast water filter comes tested & certified by Control Union as having passed the test and not clogging at 1,000 mg/L of TSS, they can have more confidence in their entire BWMS. This means a certified ballast filter is also of interest to BWMS manufacturers and naval architects who help ship operators pick and install their BWMS.
Filtersafe’s Shanghai Test Results
Filtersafe sent 5 configurations of its ballast water filter to the Control Union location in the Netherlands for the test (a combination of 25 micron and 40 micron screens paired with standard, turbo and superturbo automatic self-cleaning options in a BS101 filter body).
Filtersafe is proud to announce that not only did all 5 of the configurations pass the 1,000 mg/L challenge, all filters were challenged with increasingly turbid water, up to 2,450 mg/L, and none of them clogged.
We invite you to take a look at the results yourself. You can download the Shanghai Test Report to receive an explanation in detail of how the test was conducted and the results of each of the 5 tests.
Please fill out the form below to immediately download your copy of Filtersafe’s Shanghai Test Report.