Vigo vessel owners’ co-operative ARVI and EnergyLab will continue to collaborate until 2032 on the Inertimar initiative, the second phase of which has the aim of developing and validating a sustainable and effective parasite elimination system on board a fishing vessel.
The viscera are currently removed from the fish, but this often contaminated offal is frequently discarded back into the sea, returning parasites to the marine environment where they can infect more fish. For this reason, vessel owners are looking to ensure proper management of the viscera on board, in order to avoid the spread of the parasite among fish species.
In 2019 ARVI and the EnergyLab Technology Centre developed a project that demonstrated that it is possible to use excess engine heat to decontaminate such waste. This method makes it possible to reduce the re-spreading the parasite without generating additional energy costs and does not increase the carbon footprint of the vessel.
Following the success of the results obtained, this new project will be developed in which EnergyLab and ARVI, as collaborating entities, propose to advance in the development of the initial prototype.
The Inertimar project (Sustainable system for exterminating parasites in viscera on board) is an initiative framed within the Recovery Plan, Transformation and Resilience Plan and financed by the European NextGeneration EU Fund.
A prototype will be designed and built to be adapted to an existing fishing vessel and easily adaptable to the rest of the fleet. This new prototype will be installed on board one of the Gran Sol fishing vessels. Once its operation has been tested under real conditions, the necessary modifications will be made to optimise it.
ARVI will assist EnergyLab in developing and incorporating the prototype into the vessel and training the crew to operate it during the test trip.
This project aims to increase market confidence by helping to preserve the quality of the fish by improving the final product, thanks to the development of equipment that will provide alternatives in the market to other existing disposal equipment. The objective is to create a simple, efficient and robust machine that does not consume energy.
