Recently, the world's first NiBallastTM BWMS employing mechanical filtration + membrane separation + nitrogen-filled oxygen-removed treatment process passed the U.S. Coast Guard type approval, which is the first set of ballast water system in China that has successfully passed the complete set of certification tests without going abroad. Shanghai Ocean University Ship Ballast Water Testing Laboratory has made great contributions to the first domestic born type approval certificate. This also means that, in the context of the normalization of the pandemic, China's independently developed ballast water system no longer have to travel to foreign countries to obtain international certification.
As regards international shipping, in addition that the production approval of the ship ballast water management system needs to obtain the type approval certificate of the International Maritime Organization, ships entering U.S. waters also need to obtain the type approval certificate of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). USCG ballast water management system type approval is currently recognized as the most demanding, the highest-standard and the most difficult certification in the world. Before 2019, there were only 5 laboratories in the world that can carry out this certification, and all of them are foreign laboratories. In order to obtain this certification, China's ballast water equipment must travel across the oceans.
In order to break the monopoly of foreign testing groups, Shanghai Ocean University's Ship Ballast Water Testing Laboratory has gone through 8 years of hardship and overcome all difficulties to obtain the authorized qualification in June 2019, becoming the first and only laboratory in China to be authorized by the U.S. Coast Guard for accreditation, thus entering the ranks of international first-class ballast water laboratories. From then on, if ballast water equipment produced by Chinese enterprises hope to obtain international certification, it is no longer necessary to transport the equipment to Europe or the United States for certification. All shore based tests and real ship tests can be completed independently by the Ship Ballast Water Testing Laboratory of Shanghai Ocean University.
In the same month when the laboratory was qualified, Nanji Machinery sent its Niballast BWMS to Shanghai Ocean University test base for 15 cycles of shore-based tests for 3 salinity series. In two years and three months, with day + night and 5 + 2 work of the laboratory personnel, and after all the shore-based tests and real ship sea tests, the complete certification tests and certification information preparation and review work were performed completely in China for the first time and successfully passed the type approval of the USCG Laboratory.