Grant: Engage Grants Program

Biofouling is the accretion of biological matter on surfaces exposed to aquatic environments. In the ocean,biofouling has numerous negative impacts for industry, society and the environment. These include reducedperformance and integrity of marine installations, reduced economic sustainability of aquaculture systems, andthe redistribution of invasive species. This project focuses on improving the efficiency of a novel antifoulingsystem for marine instrumentation. AML Oceanographic manufactures ocean sensors (measuring soundvelocity, conductivity, turbidity, etc.) used in industries such as hydrographic surveys, oil and gas, dredging andenvironmental monitoring. The sensors are highly sensitive to biofouling. AML Oceanographic has developeda system that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to deter fouling on and near their sensors. However, the UVillumination has relatively high power requirements, which affects the duration of deployment forbattery-powered instruments. This project will determine the minimum power consumption needed to deterfouling by comparing the fouling effects of different UV illumination patterns. The duration and frequency ofUV illumination that minimizes power consumption and yet still have adequate antifouling effects are notknown. Dr. Russell Wyeth has the expertise with antifouling experiments necessary to fill this knowledge gap.Briefly, a field experiment will deploy arrays of UV light emitting diodes with different illumination settings ina custom-designed experimental apparatus that allows measurement of fouling over time with sufficientreplication to compensate for the strong variability that can occur in biofouling. The results will be used toestablish the relationship between UV illumination patterns and their antifouling effects. This information willallow AML Oceanographic to optimize antifouling effect versus power consumption in their instruments.AML Oceanographic instrumentation can be (and is) used widely in Canadian maritime industries, and thisrefined antifouling technology will benefit users of the instrumentation by increasing deployment times andthereby reducing retrieval and maintenance costs.