Mussels to Purify the Waters of the Port of Palma
Mussels to Purify the Waters of the Port of Palma
The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has launched the project “The mussel as a bioremediator in the waters of the Port of Palma.” This is a study led by the Balearic Oceanographic Centre, which has confirmed its viability after passing the first tests. With the logistical support of the company Astilleros de Mallorca, scientists from the Oceanographic Centre have begun their first work in the Port of Palma, installing several ropes with mussels provided by shellfish harvesters from Menorca. Specifically, two ropes have been installed, each with about 30 mussels, in the dock of the Astilleros de Mallorca facilities, another rope at the La Lonja Marina Charter nautical concession, and a fourth one outside the port, which serves as a control and for comparing parameters with those inside.
Every three months, the research team from the Oceanographic Centre, led by Salud Deudero, will analyze the tissues of the mussels in this first phase, determining the amount of hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and microplastics they accumulate. Finally, in this first phase of the study, if the mussels prove clearly beneficial and viable for the final biofiltration of port waters, a scientific proposal will be published to implement them throughout the port, with the aim of scaling it up in the medium term to other ports managed by the APB.
Initial calculations by the scientists estimate that about 4,000 meters of mussel rope, without disturbing navigators or users, could filter all the water in the Port of Palma every three months, as a single mussel can filter up to two liters of water per hour. A study in Plymouth (United Kingdom) found that a group of just 300 mussels could filter up to 250,000 microplastic particles per hour. The results suggest that mussels could rapidly reduce up to 25% of the microplastics floating in the sea.
The first port in the world to implement the mussel bioremediation system on a large scale was New York.
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