Essay On Marine Fouling

Marine fouling is an undesirable accumulation of biotic and abiotic depositions on a submerged engineered surface in sea water. Deposits of abiotic materials such as organic and inorganic substances called molecular fouling and deposits of biotic molecules such as micro and macro organisms known as biofouling. Both the fouling on engineered structures in the marine environment is a serious issue in the entire world.
Definition
Fouling can be defined as an undesirable accumulation of adsorption, colonisation, and development of abiotic materials and biotic materials on submerged or immersed structures (Clare, 1996 and Callow, 1996).
Stages of fouling
There are three major stages in the fouling process i.e. (a) Molecular, (b) Microfouling and (c) Macrofouling.
Molecular or abiotic fouling
Molecular fouling or abiotic fouling is the accretion of organic and inorganic molecules from solution onto immersed structures. The structures may have several characteristics that are important in the addition process (Characklis, 1973).The establishment of microbial colonization raise as the surface irregularity develops. Adhesion of abiotic materials alters the property of any substratum making all surface becomes wet

These fouling organisms cause immense mechanical troubles through attaching on hulls of ship, power plants, cooling structures, aquaculture, fishing nets, pipelines and other marine infrastructures().
Once if the ship hull is fouled it increase drag and surface corrosion, followed to reduced velocity and thereby causing higher fuel utilization (Younglood et al., 2003).This in turn has economic and environmental issues, as increased fuel consumption leads to increased output of green house gases (Anderson, 2002) and maintenance cost (Hattori and Shizuri, 1996). Parts of a ship other than the hull are also affected due to