Press release: “Ultrasonic Treatment Suppresses Biofilm-Mediated Larval Settlement of Mussels: A Pilot Study” got published

The ‘Journal of Marine Science and Engineering’, a renowned scientific publication, has accepted the article "Ultrasonic Treatment Suppresses Biofilm-Mediated Larval Settlement of Mussels: A Pilot Study". The authors of the article are Jacob Capelle, WUR – Wageningen University and Research, Marco Dubbeldam and Sean Teng, both from Stichting Zeeschelp, the innovative marine biology lab based in Kamperland, Zeeland. You can read the article online without pay-wall through this link or download the PDF:

jmse-14-00136-with-cover.pdf

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This study elaborately tested and proved that ultrasonic sound, if working on a clean surface to begin with, is capable of preventing virtually all marine fouling. The study measured an average of almost 50 times less marine fouling on the plates treated with the right ultrasonic regime as compared to plates without such treatment. This means that for every 1000 settled mussels on an untreated plate, there were just 20 on the treated plate.

The ultrasonic regime was carefully developed by Shipsonic, brandname of the company Delta-Sistems BV. Delta-Sistems BV was not itself involved in measuring the results. The researchers who conducted the study, who are the authors of the article, are fully independent scientists.

For Shipsonic this is an important result and demonstrates that the exact way of mounting its transducers and the software managing the ultrasonic sound, is highly effective. At the same time, the study confirmed Shipsonic’s team’s assumption that it is crucial that the ultrasonic regime requires completely clean plates, without any biofilm and that the system needs to be on continuously for full effectiveness.

Feel free to contact Shipsonic (busdev@shipsonic.com) if you are interested to learn more, if you want to get access to the full data set or otherwise have an interest.