(July 30, 2015) Untreated ballast water discharge from ships
can spread living organisms and even pathogens across the world thereby
introducing non-native or invasive species into the local environment.
Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München therefore recommend using physical
treatment processes such as filtration rather than electrochemical
disinfection, which creates countless potentially toxic compounds. These are
the findings of a recent study published in the journal ‘Environmental Science
and Technology’.
In order to prevent the transfer of harmful organisms, ships’
ballast water is often subjected to electrochemical disinfection.* “However,
our analyses show that electrochemical disinfection creates numerous so-called
disinfection by-products (DBPs),” explains Prof. Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin, who
led the study. He and his team at the Analytical BioGeoChemistry (BGC) research
unit at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, working in close collaboration with
colleagues in the US, compared samples of treated and untreated ballast water.
Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, they discovered that treatment led to
the formation of 450 new, diverse compounds, some of which had not previously
been described as disinfection products or been structurally categorized.