Experimental Study of Charcoal Filter and UV Radiation as Ballast Water Treatment System

Ship are widely used by means of transportation, especially in areas or region that has surrounded by sea. Ships moves over 80% of the world’s commodities and transfers approximately 3 to 5 billion tonnes of ballast water internationally annually. Ballast Water is water carried by ships to ensure stability, trim and structural integrity. When a ship loads cargo, the ballast water is discharged. When a ship is empty of cargo, it fills its tanks with ballast water. Ballast water contains many microorganisms such as: phytoplankton, zooplankton, etc. When introduced to new marine environments, they pose a threat to the local marine ecological system. To solve and overcome this problem IMO (International Maritime Organization) on 2004 has been issued a regulation on ballast water treatment management written in IMO Ballast Water Management Convention in which if the ballast water about to be discharged into the sea it must be processed first to meet IMO standards. This project will aim to study ballast water treatment method using a Charcoal Filter and combining it with UV radiation using method of filtering the microbial content at a variation flow rates of 10 Lpm, 20 lpm, and 30 lpm with a maximum UV dose of 120 watts. Microbial observation in this study used Total Plate Count (TPC) method by using specific media of growth of Escherichia coli bacteria in the form of Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) and sterilizied salinity where the salinity has the same as sea water sample. From the results of this observation will be known whether the prototype of ballast water treatment that has been made are working as intended and effectively in killing microbial water pathogens contained in sea wate