Dr Burkard Watermann, a zoologist and director of the Research Institute LimnoMar, has been researching the subject of anti-fouling for the German Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the long term, anti-fouling measures must become biocide-free. Not only large companies but also the responsible regulatory authorities are aware that biocide-free solutions are imperative,\u201d said Dr Watermann.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll anti-fouling biocides which are currently approved by the EU pose risks. There is a strong need for biocide-free solutions and, as a result, research is increasingly focusing on this subject.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biocide use<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr Watermann said that legislation regarding the use of biocides is regionally organised and poses real barriers for many shipping companies and shipyards.<\/p>\n In addition, he said, there will be more and more waters in Europe where anti-fouling systems containing biocides are no longer permitted so the demand for biocide-free solutions is increasing.<\/p>\n Dr Watermann said that there are many positive benefits to switching to biocide-free anti-fouling too.<\/p>\n More choice is now available on the market, whether anti-stick coatings, anti-stick films, hull lifting or cleaning systems or even tarpaulins which are drawn under the boat\u2019s hull, they can all be used in both brackish water and seawater.<\/p>\n Coatings containing biocides, on the other hand, always have to be matched to corresponding salinity of the water because it influences the leaching of the biocide out of the coating.<\/p>\n Dr Watermann has been examining Renolit\u2019s films and performing regular trials for almost three years.<\/p>\n He said that the advantages of fouling release films are generally based on the high quality of the Fluoropolymer layer. As opposed to anti-stick coatings, which are difficult to apply and which yield qualitatively unreliable results, a fouling release film offers maximum good performance.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our experience, the performance of such films is equivalent to professionally-applied biocide coatings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFurthermore, if physically damaged, the corresponding areas of such films can be simply cut out, removed and renewed. Repairs to anti-fouling coatings, on the other hand, are considerably more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, anti-fouling coatings containing biocides have to leach to generate the desired effect. In the case of fouling release films, the layers neither separate nor erode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A German anti-fouling expert warns that anti-fouling measures must become biocide-free to adhere with legislation and that films may be the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[77],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-anti-fouling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4498,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions\/4498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}