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Regulatory and Product Stewardship
The marine industry works hand-in-hand with the regulatory community to adopt new technologies with proven environmental benefits. Dow Microbial Control can deliver best-in-class regulatory and product stewardship, world-class toxicology and environmental research expertise. So you can protect your ships and the environment at the same time.

Trusted, Award-Winning Microbial Control
SEA-NINE™ 211N has been in the market for more than 30 years and has numerous approvals and awards. For more information on the SEA-NINE line of products, talk to your local expert today.

Why Preservatives Are Needed

What are some of the issues in microbial control that are particular to your market?

Algae, weeds and barnacles attach themselves to surfaces exposed in marine environments. The result is excessive drag on vessels as they travel through water.

The common fouling organisms are:
Soft Fouling: algae, diatoms, bacteria, hydroids, tunicates
Hard Fouling: barnacles, tubeworms, bryazoa, mollusks, clams, mussels

Marine fouling causes harmful effects to assets:

• Increased fuel consumption 
  • Use of an additional 7 mm tons of fuel/year
  • Results in 22 million tons of excess carbon dioxide
  • Causes 0.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide to be emitted, causing greenhouse and acid rain effects

•  Additional dry-docking/maintenance frequency
  • Results in increased dry-docking frequency intervals of 24-38 months
  • Escalates maintenance costs and equipment downtime periods

• High cost to marine industry
  • More than 4 billion USD each year

What should I look for in marine biocides?

• Products that do not leach into the marine environment
• Products with rapid degradation of the biocide in the environment
• Products with rapid environmental partitioning resulting in limited bioavailability to non-target organisms
• Products with minimal toxicity to non-target organisms
• Products with minimal bioaccumulation of toxicologically significant compounds
• Products with non hazardous environmental concentrations