Biofouling Innovators

Within the world of TOOL, we help map frontrunners in the ocean industries and working with zero emission solutions.

In this article you can explore the full range of stakeholders battling biofouling and invasive aquatic species, currently seeking partners and customers but also offering resources.

Innovations Based on Chemical Compounds

BioMimetx S.A. is a born global biotech start-up focused in the development of antifouling solutions derived from Nature.

Cathelco LTD is part of the Evac Group, and it specialises in marine growth prevention and hull corrosion protection for ships.

Clean Ocean Coatings produces environmentally friendly surface coating without microplastics, combination of nanostructured particles in connection with a polymer matrix.

ePaint develops specialty antifouling coatings for the United States Coast Guard, The United States Navy, and others.

Finsulate is a typical Dutch maritime invention and has been applied to yachts and vessels on every continent. Ranging from small sloops and day sailers up to offshore support vessels and dry weight bulkers. The Finsulate concept works in any environment and is up to any challenge!

Gills Pte Ltd is dedicated to develop, engineer and market an Air Lubrication System for ships which reduces the resistance of ships by generating micro air bubbles.

Graphite Innovation & Technologies is Canada’s leading graphene protective coatings company, GIT is focused on using graphene to deliver solutions for a wide range of applications, including marine transportation.

MicroTau prints nature’s functional surfaces by bringing scalable microfabrication to industries including aerospace, shipping and health care. We leverage millions of years of evolutionary design to produce drag-reducing, self-cleaning and anti-fouling properties to any surface.

NatureMetrics was founded with the ambition of bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practitioners needs in the field of environmental monitoring.

Penrhos Bio produces a patented novel active that is effective against multispecies biofilms including fungi and algae.

Propspeed the industry leader in foul-release coatings, has been protecting your underwater assets for over 21 years. The Propspeed coating system is recognised globally as the best prevention of marine growth and fouling of propellers, running gear and other underwater metals.

Repela Tech Leader in eco-friendly marine coating innovations. Their patented hydrogel coating outperformed gold standard commercial coatings in resisting marine micro-/macro- organisms.

Seacoat develops advanced coatings chemistry that enables vessel owners and operators to meet and exceed operational, Regulatory as well as environmental compliance goals while imparting a positive impact to our customer’s bottom line.

Smallmatek is an innovation-driven company that offers integrated solutions for protection of metal structures against corrosion and biofouling failure, combining the development and production of cost-effective and eco-efficient “smart” additives with expert consulting services

Suricle improves profitability for marine industries by eliminating the crippling effects of biofouling.

Termanox BV is a startup that developed an innovative sustainable cooling water treatment in which traditional chemistry can be reduced by more than 95%, which has a significant effect on the entire supply chain.

Titanium Technology S.L. TiTech is the only anti-fouling solution based on polarized titanium. We stand for a blue technology. They are a nature-based solution that uses titanium’s properties through electrochemistry to obtain anti-fouling structures that last in time and are environmentally friendly.

Innovations Based on Ultrasound

Altum Technologies is the first company in the world that can completely control power ultrasound to clean fouling from different type of equipment without stopping production.

HASYTEC has been developing since 2016 ultrasound technologies to avoid deposits on all liquid carrying surfaces;

Künste is a 100% Italian brand that operates in the nautical sector with particular interest in the field of ultrasound applications used as an antifouling against the formation of fouling (algae, molluscs and dog teeth).

LG Sonic Delivers smart solutions to fight water pollution and reduce harmful chemical usage in the water treatment industry, and provides help in sustainable algae management.

MARELCO 's marine growth and corrosion protection system is a suite of solutions that reduce maintenance, achieve significant cost-savings, and improve the operational and environmental performance of marine assets.

Shipsonic develops, tests and installs ultrasonic antifouling for commercial shipping, offshore, fishing and industry.

Sonihull anti-fouling systems use the power of ultrasound to protect the inside and outside of marine vessels and structures from unwanted marine growth.

Ultraguard Antifouling is a hi-tech, clean and efficient system for the prevention of biofouling on all types of vessels and craft anywhere in the world.

WaveArray Antifouling Systems is a business headquartered in Naples, FL specifically created to solve the problem of biofouling on submerged structures. It has won multiple National Science Foundation (America's Seed Fund) awards based upon its innovative solutions.

Innovations Based on Automation

AKVA Group with its four main brands of aquaculture products, is now the world's most recognized brand of aquaculture technology. They are proud to provide our customers with the tools needed to farm their fish in a cost effective and sustainable manner world wide.

Alicia Bots has developed market-leading robotics and mobility solutions for the maritime, offshore, oil and gas industry.

Armach Robotics, Inc. is revolutionizing ship husbandry using autonomous robots and artificial intelligence.Through a subscription service, Armach robots provide continuously clean ship hulls and regular hull surveys.

Berkeley Marine Robotics mission is to help ships lower fuel-CO2 emissions and to help ports protect marine ecosystems by leveraging advanced autonomous swarm systems and underwater wireless communication.

Bravo Marine develops and sells underwater cleaning systems.

C-leanship is a leading provider of sustainable underwater services. Committed to delivering the highest standard of underwater services for the global shipping community.

CleanSubSea is a Western Australian based company which owns all licenses and patents associated with a revolutionary new fully enclosed capture, containment and filtration In-Water Hull Cleaning technology called the Envirocart™.

CLIIN Robotics Develops a cleaning robot designed to replace a normal four-step cleaning process for shipping companies.

EcoSubSea is the leading provider of environmentally friendly in-water hull cleaning services to the worldwide shipping industry.

fDevices has developed a unique method of removing biofouling, a gentle cleaning technique (low pressure at low flow) designed not to damage the anti-fouling coating on submerged vessels.

Fleet Cleaner is a Dutch company, specialized in hull cleaning operations using a unique solution. With a remotely operated cleaning robot, Fleet Cleaner is capable of cleaning the vessels’ hull under and above the waterline during cargo operations.

Hullbot is an Australian startup that has developed a robotic in-water hull cleaning system. Designed from the ground up to autonomously inspect, map and clean the hull of a boat without a human operator present.

HullWiper provides cost-effective, efficient and environmentally-compliant hull cleaning services for vessels of all shapes and sizes

Hydro Hull Cleaning 's ROVs are with leading edge hull cleaning technology where unrivalled collection and filtration capabilities are enabled.

hydRov provides robotics-driven hull cleaning.

I-Tech AB is the Swedish bio-technology company behind the antifouling technology Selektope®.

Jotun has developed the Hullskater as suppliment to their traditional harmful coating products, and work to make their coating longer lasting.

Keelcrab is an underwater, mechanical, automated system, the first of the technologies conceived, designed and implemented by the company. Produced with the aim to cut down the running costs and reduce the risks associated with the cleaning operations, it also combats the pollution caused by the chemicals.

Mainstay the company is a frontrunner within the subsurface aquaculture net cleaning industry and is the global leader in terms of number of installations.

Marine Pro AS will offer the only true environmentally friendly and sustainable solution for cleaning hulls from fouling.

Nautica Robotics offer a truly innovative concept, not attempted anywhere before. We are the only solution capable of proactively cleaning both, vessel hull & vessel niches. As we use swarm robotics, our solution can be adapted to many different ship types and scenarios, making it incredibly effective and efficient.

nakAI Robotics is building a fully Autonomous Hull Cleaning Robot: the Robot & Docking station always travels with the ship, removes early-stage Slime & Biofouling while vessels are In-Transit.

Navatic 's MITO is the most stable and affordable underwater drone in the consumer market.

Neptune Robotics is building the future of fuel efficiency in marine logistics. Ship hull cleaning services and fuel-saving solutions via our proprietary underwater robots are available at ports and anchorages.

Nido Robotics At Nido Robotics we help companies within industries like maritime shipping, aquaculture, and similar to inspect and maintain their underwater assets, through teleoperated underwater robotics and cloud-based reporting and analytics software.

Norsjór was established in early 2021 to solve the significant problem associated with biofouling on ship hulls. We have identified a substantial gap in the market and designed innovative technology to fill this gap.

Notilo Plus is the company behind iBubble and Seasam, the world's first autonomous underwater drones made for leisure and professional applications.

OceanTech is a technology driven company with long experience and proven track record in the Splash Sone. We provide services in the difficult accessible Splash Zone which is defined as areas where divers and ROV’s have difficulty to work. Our Services include Cleaning, Inspection, Repair and Modification.

Ocein AS (Ocein Innovation) develops technology and smart solutions for seawater fish farming by utilizing 20 years of experience from diving, ROV, maritime operations in aquaculture, oil and gas, and the construction industry.

Østerbø 's Yanmar Net cleaner is an submergible robot for cleaning of fish farming nets. It is like the oceans Land Cruiser with uniqe accessibility all around the net, even in strong currents and slack net.

Pinovo's mission is to transform the 12-billion-dollar, environmentally-destructive sandblasting industry by building first-in-class zero-emission circular surface maintenance tools.

Scrufy is a deep tech company, with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions, based on substantial engineering challenges for the decarbonisation of the shipping industry.

SeaDrone provides drone-based end-to-end ship hull inspection soultions that enable operators to go beyond diver operations and perform class certified underwater inspections in lieu of Dry Docking.

SleekShip redefines management of ship hull biofouling, allowing inspection and cleaning to take place in contaminated, turbid waters. Our product allows quantified biofouling measurements previously impossible with conventional visual inspection due to light backscattering caused by waterborne particles in dock waters.

SLM Global provides robotic underwater cleaning for hulls.

Svitzer 's SeaBadger is a highly advanced hull cleaning ROV that makes hull cleaning safer and more efficient. Thanks to their global port coverage, Svitzer has the ambition to offer a standardized high quality service level of hull cleaning for vessel owners and operators.

SymbyTech develops solutions that perform in a symbiotic manner; the harmony of technology, man and machine delivering robotic solutions that perform better and more efficiently.

TAS Global brings together the best industry analysis, vessel designing, and submergence and robotics. TAS Global have also created economical and green marine robot cleaning systems for the first time in the world.The main goal is to contribute to the development of the marine industry by setting a high standard of eco-friendly marine vessel cleaning.

TecHullClean is an underwater hull cleaning company specialising in the development and manufacture of environmentally friendly hull cleaning equipment and solutions, in line with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee’s (MEPC) 2011 Guidelines for the Control and Management of Ships’ Biofouling to Minimise the Transfer of Invasive Aquatic Species.

Vortex Robotics provides services & training for all techs related to underwater Robotics & marine affairs with high efficiency.

Research and Academia

AIRCOAT Is a four-year project addressing the topic: Innovations for energy efficiency and emission control in waterborne transport.

Biofouling R&D+i Group was created in 1992 and its research is focused on the study of the growth of biofouling and its control, with regard to artificial structures in contact with seawater and to heat exchangers-condensers cooled with seawater.

Centre for Biofouling Research (St. Francis Xavier University) is an interdisciplinary team researching cost effective and environmentally friendly solutions to manage biofouling.

Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control (Florida Institute of Technology) specializes in education and research that promotes an understanding and improvement for the design of corrosion and biofouling control systems.

Centre for Marine Biofouling and Corrosion provides scientific expertise and services to reduce the impact of biofouling to your operation(s) and improve the next generation of antifouling technology.

Endures specializes in the field of maritime corrosion, anti-fouling, micro-biologically influenced corrosion, and failure analysis.

The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) is a governmental research organization which currently, together with Diving Status are workinig towards EcoHullClean project.

IMarEST is the international membership organisation and learned society for marine science, engineering and technology professionals.

Institute for Antifouling and Biocorrosion specializes in the efficacy testing of innovative, biocide-free and biocide-based antifouling systems, e.g. for shipping, offshore structures, and port constructions.

LimnoMar performes scientific aquatic research, in freshwater as in marine waters. As a private research lab LimnoMar acquainted comprehensive experience and knowledge of fouling prevention, and management for vessels and leisure boats.

Pacific West National Laboratory is conducting research in quantifying the initial steps of the biofouling process.

Expertise, Advisory & Project Management

ALLSET Industries operates within all aspects of the marine, offshore, renewables and defense industry, in the field of electrical, electronics, instrumentation, and engineering.

Biofouling Solutions has been delivering pragmatic advice and hands-on assistance to help regulators and the global shipping industry manage biofouling and Invasive Aquatic Species (IAS).

BioMarine Services is a specialist service provider in sampling and analysis with respect to marine ecosystems.

Franmarine is uniquely placed to support both the operational and legislative objectives of the international commercial shipping industry when it comes to marine biosecurity and biofouling management.

H2O Biofouling Solutions B.V. was founded with the mission to provide Economic and Ecological solutions to control biofouling in industrial water systems.

IMI Critical Engineering is a leading provider of critical flow control technologies across the Marine, Defence, nuclear, power, and oil & gas industries for over five decades. They have the design, manufacturing, commercial, and aftermarket expertise to provide tailored valve solutions for extreme operating environments.

Litehauz provides clients with a wide range of environmental projects within shipping, ports and offshore facilities, and delivered solutions on sustainability, ballast water and emission issues.

OceanFront provides project management, engineering, procurement, logistics and consulting services for both onshore and offshore customers.

Accelerators & Incubators

Check out our listing of Accelerators and Incubators in the Ocean and Energy here!

Are you offering an accelerator or incubator programme focused specifically on biofouling solutions, or do you know others who are? Contact us to get on the map!

Investors

Check out our listing of Investors in the Ocean and Energy here!

Are you an investor focused specifically on biofouling solutions, or do you know others who are? Contact us to get on the map!

Industry projects

ECOHULLCLEAN project aims to develop a methodological approach and an integrated system for underwater ecological hull cleaning of vessels

Clean Hull Initiative - towards a standard for proactive hull cleaning

NORselast is a research project that will try to develop the first polyurethane material in the world with AntiFouling properties lasting for at least 10 years.