APATEQ announced on Monday the receipt of a major order from the Danish shipping company Scandlines.

The order refers to APATEQ’s newly developed compact scrubber water treatment system “MarinePaq”, using proprietary process technologies for high-efficiency primary treatment, followed by ultrafiltration and rounded up by heavy metal extraction processes. The MarinePaq will treat wastewater arising from closed-loop scrubbers that are installed on Scandlines’ ferries. The treatment will take place at a centralised facility at the harbour of Gedser (DK), producing an effluent with a quality compliant for direct discharge into the harbour basin.

Scrubber wastewater is typically highly contaminated with heavy metals, hydrocarbons and soot arising from the heavy bunker oil used. Current treatment technologies available on the market such as hydro-cyclones and centrifuges are often overstrained with scrubber water, especially in terms of eliminating the tiny lightweight soot particles that act as carriers for hydrocarbons. By means of APATEQ’s MarinePaq solution, even the smallest particles are reliably removed, providing an effluent that allows a direct discharge into open water. Sludge, arising from the treatment, is compacted by an integrated chamber filter press and safely disposed of in landfills.

Scandlines as a shipping company has an environmental responsibility. We want to contribute to the preservation of the fragile marine ecosystem by cleaning our exhaust gases and by only discharging water of the highest quality back into the ocean”, stated Fini Hansen, Scandlines Technical Superintendent. “APATEQ’s MarinePaq offers a unique solution to discharge the cleaned water even into the harbour basin.”

We are grateful and proud of the trust Scandlines shows in our new technology and we look forward to the MarinePaq becoming state-of-the-art technology for scrubber water treatment in the future”, said APATEQ Chief Sales Officer Dirk Martin. “Our MarinePaq is the perfect solution for treating scrubber water either directly on-board, or as here, in a compact design at a centralised facility. We will build the MarinePaq for Scandlines in two 40’ containers stacked one on top of the other, ensuring a minimum footprint, an important factor for an installation at an existing harbour.”

As APATEQ’s cooperation partner for Scandinavia, we are delighted to have facilitated this initial order”, said Björneman Water CEO Rolf Hollmén. “Our advisory team possesses decades of experience in the maritime sector and is strongly committed to reducing the negative impact of vessel emissions on our marine environment. To us, APATEQ’s MarinePaq significantly contributes to the realisation of sustainable shipping in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea area.”

The plan is to deliver, to install and to commission the plant in Gedser (DK) in the spring of 2016.