Hull Surface Treatment (HST) technology is a new environmentally friendly hull cleaning technology for treating the growth on a ship's hull.

It uses no chemicals, detergents or substances which are foreign or harmful to the marine environment. HST instantly kills growth which is then abraded in open seas.
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November 2011-
The School of Biological Sciences at the University of Wollongong and T&C Marine teamed up to carry out trials to determine the efficacy of heated seawater on marine organisms in ships sea-chests applied using HST technology.

As part of an honours student thesis for Masters student Mr Andrew Leach, the trials were carried out in various stages. Settlement racks were manufactured and settlement plates were attached and placed in a strategic location in the Port Kembla harbour. Once there was sufficient fouling on the plates, a cross section were treated in tubs of hot water at various temperatures and for varying durations. These tests in the tubs showed 100% mortality rate of all the organisms on the settlement plates.

A mock sea chest was then fabricated to simulate as close as possible a real life sea chest on a ship. Once the sea chest was completed an HST applicator was attached to the grating of the opening and heat trials took place. Settlement plates and bags of mature organisms, eg mussels, were placed at different points in the sea chest which was then submerged. The inside of the sea chest was raised to a set temperature using the HST applicator and held for a set duration. This test was carried out five times using different temperatures and durations and using different settlement plates and bags of mature organisms.

The results of the tests have been determined in a laboratory and are conclusive. HST applied to a sea chest has the ability to kill all marine organisms within that niche area including mature organisms like mussels etc. The technology can be located over a sea chest grate and the treatment applied resulting in the mitigation of invasive species.

Why risk the possibility of allowing bio-invasion when this technolgoy can elliminate that risk?

Graph above: Average viability of organisms after HST treatment regimes (±S.E.). Andrew Leach - Thesis "Testing the efficacy of heated seawater for managing biofouling in ship’s sea chests"