Damen has signed its first contract with Erma First. The Greek company will be supplying its oneTANK, which is the world’s smallest ballast water treatment system. As oneTANK uses chemical injection methods to clean ships’ ballast water, it is an expansion of Damen’s ballast water treatment system portfolio.
Damen Green Solutions has a broad selection of ballast water treatment systems in its range. These offer shipowners various capacities and techniques in treating their ballast water. With the addition of the Erma First oneTANK, Damen can provide clients with a solution that is not only small, but also modular.
This modularity will be particularly important in Damen’s first project with Erma First, where the client was looking for a plug-and-play ballast water treatment product that could be placed on the deck of its vessel.
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Ballast water treatment in a twenty-foot container
‘Our client needed a temporary ballast water treatment solution for quite an old vessel,’ explains Damen sales manager Rutger van Dam. ‘Erma First’s oneTANK is small enough to be housed in a twenty-foot container. This means that installation will be quite straightforward and, more importantly, at the end of the vessel’s operational life, the whole system can be removed and installed on another vessel.’
The contract is important to Damen because it broadens the scope of ballast water treatment products that it can offer. ‘We have different systems available from various manufacturers. We know the pros and cons of all these systems; they have varying capacities and use different techniques: UV, filtration, electrolysis, and now chemical injection.’
To treat a vessel’s ballast water, the fully-certified Erma First oneTANK uses an 8.25 per cent or 12.5 per cent sodium hypochlorite and thirty per cent sodium thiosulfate solution, with both chemicals being neutralised after use. ‘For owners working with workboats, superyachts and pontoons (smaller vessels) that are not dependent on frequent ballast operations, oneTANK is a great solution,’ continues Van Dam.
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