Ship’s Ballast Water Analysis: Microfluidic Technology in Algae Analysis

The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship's Ballast Water and Sediments mandates ships undertake ballast water treatment to reduce, remove or kill organisms of concern before being allowed to discharge their water. This book introduces technologies and devices that are used for the analysis of treated ballast water. Emphasis is placed on the separation, manipulation, detection, counting, and sizing of microalgae in a microfluidic chip which shows great potential for developing miniatured analysis devices.

Features:

• Introduces technologies and devices related to analysis of treated ballast water.
• Identifies the need for reliable devices to monitor viable organisms in treated ship’s ballast waters.
• Covers recent research in microfluidics-based cell sorting and developments of lab-on-chip devices.
• Addresses requirements of the Convention to be implemented by 2024.
• Reviews electric and optical-based methods for organism counting, sizing, and viability differentiation.

This book is aimed at researchers and professionals in marine engineering, ocean technology, environmental engineering, and microfluidics.

Yongxin Song is a professor in the College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University (DMU). He received his PhD degree in marine engineering from Dalian Maritime University in 2012. Since joining DMU, he has worked as an assistant professor (2004), associate professor (2012) and professor (2017–now).

He is a creative scientist at the forefront of exploring new sensing methods and Lab-on-chip devices and their applications in the field of marine engineering. He is committed to making breakthroughs in any topic of microfluidic sensing technology where using conventional approaches to shrink the devices is challenging. His research areas include mechanical engineering, colloid and interface, and electrical engineering.

Dr Song pioneered several groundbreaking studies in microfluidic chips‑based marine pollution analysis, such as electric and surface charge‑based living algae detection. He was the local co‑chair of the 2016 International Conference of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics and Lab‑on‑chip; guest editor and member of the topic advisory board of the Micromachines journal, as well as section chair of the 2018 International Conference of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics and Lab‑on‑chip. He has published more than 100 high‑quality international journal papers, with more than twenty patents licensed.

Junyan Zhang is currently an associate professor in the College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University (DMU), Dalian, China. His research interests include electrokinetic phenomena, microfluidics and nanofluidics, colloid and interface science, ballast water detection, as well as flexible devices for sensing. He has published more than ten high‑quality papers. In addition, he has been working as a fourth engineer on ocean‑going ships for over 18 months. He was granted funding (2021–2023) by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for the project titled "Characteristics of microalgae surface charge and analysis of microalgae viability in ship ballast water." He has developed a novel method to evaluate the viability of microalgae in ballast water through an aqueous two‑phase system.

Mengqi Li is an associate professor in the College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University (DMU). He received his PhD degree in Mechanical engineering from the Universityof Waterloo in 2018. From 2019 to 2020, he worked at the University of Waterloo as a Postdoc Fellow. Since joining DMU in 2020, he has worked as an associate professor. His research interests include microfluidics and nanofluidics, colloid and interface science, soft matter, electrokinetic phenomena, as well as electrochemical detection techniques. He has published more than 30 high‑quality papers and applied more than ten patents.

Moreover, he harbors an interest in ballast water treatment and detection techniques. He has developed a novel technique for identifying the viability of microalgae through liquid–liquid interface under electric field, which has attracted great attention.

Ming Li is currently an associate professor and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. She obtained her PhD from the University of Wollongong in Australia and conducted postdoctoral training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Los Angeles, in the USA. She was a lecturer and then senior lecturer at Macquarie University before joining UNSW. Her research interests include microfluidics, biosensors, lab‑on‑a‑chip technology and micro‑electro‑mechanical systems (MEMS).

Xiangchun Xuan is a professor of mechanical engineering at Clemson University. He received his PhD degree from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto in 2006 and Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1995. He was a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2012 and the Clemson University Distinguished Doctoral Mentoring Award in 2022. His research interests cover the fundamentals and applications of microfluidics with a special interest in particle and cell manipulations. He has published over 150 journal articles with a Google Scholar h‑index of 55.

Na Li received her PhD degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China in 2020. She completed postdoctoral studies at the Marine Engineering College of Dalian Maritime University. Her research interests include environmental chemistry, molecular biology and aquatic toxicology. In addition, she has received several tech grants, including those for basic scientific projects at universities, Science and Technology Talent Innovation Support Policy projects