Researcher Ulla E. Bollmann and Professor Kai Bester have received founding from Miljøstyrelsens Pesticide research program for the project “Antifouling biocides: leaching, degradation and fate”. The budget is 2.981.884 DKK.

Antifouling biocides are used to keep the underwater boat hulls free of algae and other microorganisms and thereby reduce roughness of the surface to give you higher speed and lower fuel consumption. Since the ban of tributyltin (TBT) products, huge changes of the antifouling market happened due to the approval and disapproval of compounds.

This new project aims for the establishment of an analytical method especially on metal complexed compounds such as zinc- and copper pyrithion to generate reliable and comparable data on how antifouling compounds are released from paints, especially concerning currently used antifouling biocides into water and sediment.

Leaching and degradation studies will generate important data on emissions from modern antifouling paint systems. Besides these fundamental processes, the monitoring of antifouling biocides and determination of their fate in the Danish aquatic environment are in focus.

These results will be used to compare and verify the laboratory results.

Please contact Ulla E. Bollmann (ueb@envs.au.dk) or Kai Bester (kb@envs.au.dk) for further information.