oilywatertreat

Project "oilywatertreat" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

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Map

 Project objective

FMT has developed a novel Oil Water Separator (OWS) solution that can treat large amounts of oily waste water on-board of large ships, dramatically reducing their need to store sludge on board and thereby eliminates the need for costy disposal of sludge on land. Current solutions can only treat the lightly polluted bilge water but not the heavily contaminated sludge. This leads to a need to store between 300-800 liters of sludge, depending on the size of the ship. Increasingly stringent regulation forces shipping owners to discharge the sludge before harbor entry, resulting in high disposal costs ov 235 EUR per m3 on average. Sadly, this pressure also rises the incentive to release sludge illegally in the open sea endangering the natural habitat. Heavy fines and prison sentences are the consequence.

FMT’s OWS is suitable to all commercial vessels, especially those that use heavy fuels, the biggest polluters. It separates oil and water more effectively than any other currently available system and offers ship owners an unprecedented payback of less than 10 months. The system can handle all types of oily waste water on board, while returning much cleaner water than any other system. The water is then legally discharged to sea. Crucially, the system which costs operators an .

Oily waste water is a daily occurrence on-board of vessels. Bilge water with low oil content originates from cleaning activities around the engines, while sludge is a product from purifying fuel oil and lubricants.

Unsatisfactory experiences by ship owners with current OWS systems inspired FMT to develop the solution based on their input. The FMT method for dewatering sludge through evaporation has been patented. Prototypes have been installed and tested, including at the world’s second largest ship-owner A.P. Moeller Maersk, who were willing to spent time with FMT to specify the functionality for a fully market ready solution. These suggestions have led to this Phase 1 project.