Testing Services

The Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, where Poseidon’s exposure platform is located.

Growth of organisms at a testing platform

Overview
The performance of a variety of new coatings in the marine environment is best evaluated through continuous immersion in seawater over prolonged periods of time. Poseidon maintains floating platforms in the tropics to enable year-round performance tests on the efficacy of coatings against fouling organisms such as algae, oysters and barnacles.

The ban on toxic biocides in all marine paints has created a need for companies to identify new compounds that can be added to paints to prevent attachment of fouling organisms. Barnacles and oysters are among the most tenacious marine fouling organisms. Poseidon maintains a continuous mass culture of barnacle larvae that is routinely used for settlement assays to evaluate potential new compounds. Poseidon provides testing services to companies engaged in a discovery program to identify active substances for the marine coatings industry.

Technical Support
Teams of marine biologists, chemists, toxicologists and information technology personnel support all Poseidon field stations. All tests are undertaken according to ASTM standards.

Confidentiality
Poseidon is a US-based corporation that maintains confidentiality agreements with over one hundred companies worldwide. Contract testing is undertaken with special care to protect the proprietary information of our clients.

Marine Test Centers for Static Immersion Testing and Dynamic Testing

Indian STATIC AND DYNAMIC Exposure Platforms. The city of Tuticorin is located on the southern tip of India in the Gulf of Mannar. The test platform is situated within a protected harbor in Tuticorin Bay and exposed to a wide range of fouling organisms normally found in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The predominant macrofouling species include barnacles (Balanus amphitrite), mussels/oysters (Crassostrea carvolhoi and Musculista arcuatula), ascidians, polychaetes, sea anemone, hydroids and sponges. For more information about the fouling conditions in Tuticorin Bay, please read HERE.

Philippine SUBSEA Exposure Platform. Hamtic Bay on Panay Island in the Philippines was chosen as a secondary test site. The Hamtic Bay macrofouling environment is composed of barnacles (Balanus amphitrite communis), goose barnacles, clams, oysters and other bivalves not abundant in typical polluted harbors. Tests conducted at this site will enable performance testing of coatings against a wider variety of marine fouling not normally found in harbors.

More important, the test panels are submerged at 100 meters below sea level to enable test on coatings that experience subsea pressures and a wider variety of fouling organisms not found in the near surface environment. For more information, please read HERE.

Philippine STATIC Exposure Platform. Batan Island (Aklan, Philippines). The static test platforms are located in a protected cove in Batan Bay. An aerial view of the test area is shown HERE. The test panels are submerged in the same manner as in the Tuticorin site. However, the fouling mix of organisms differs in that both barnacles (Balanus Amphitrite) and oysters (Crassostrea) predominate, along with the usual mix of soft foulers.

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