Treatment system of ships ballast water, offshore petroleum platforms and vessels, in general, through a process in an electrochemical reactor

摘要

This invention relates to a process using an electrochemical reactor to sterilize and disinfect sea water, ship's ballast water and oil platforms water through the flow through an electrolytic reactor to be installed and operated inside ships or at harbors and docks. It can be operated both continuously or in a batch mode. The ballast water to be sterilized is continuously pumped, flowing through a filtration system and circulating between cathodes, composed of titanium plates, grids or meshes and anodes composed of titanium layered with metallic oxides, which are separated only by the solution to be treated. A polluted ballast water sample with elevated bacteria concentration (from 10⁶ to 10⁸ CFU/100mL) was sterilized after 6 minutes with an electrolysis of 6 minutes with a current intensity of 6.5 A and a voltage between cathode and anode of 3.9 V. The specific energy consumption for the generation of the hypochlorite ion used in the sterilization process was 7.9 kWh/kg.