A Study on Antifouling Technique through Seawater Electrolyzing Reaction on Ship Hull Surface

Abstract

The antifouling technique through seawater electrolysis for ship hulls may be realized by an antifouling system consisting of a power unit and the electro-conductive film. In the electric field formed by such an antifouling system, besides that both the electro-conductive film layer sub-region and the seawater sub-region are included, polarization occurs on the interface between electro-conductive film layer and seawater. Therefore, based on the Interface Electro-Double Layer theory, a numerical simulation technique using both of the finite element method and the boundary element method jointly was developed. An excellent efficiency of the antifouling system using electro-conductive film was demonstrated with a long term antifouling test, and the validity of the developed numerical simulation method was verified by its applications to a small size passenger boat, for which the antifouling system was undertaken and the antifouling efficiency test was performed.