The challenge that Sea Marconi has enthusaiastically welcomed from Japan continues: laboratory establishment of concentrations of PCB down to 0.5 mg/kg as required by the Japanese market (in Europe, the limit is 25/50 mg/kg). The project also includes a second even more complex target, namely coming down to 0.5 mg/kg as a result of the oil and transformer dehalogenation process; it should be noted that, at the moment, the PCB value required by clients in Europe after dehalogenation is typically PCB < 20 mg/>< 20 mg/kg, in some cases PCB < 10 mg/>< 10 mg/kg.

But let's take a step backwards.

The key points of the project were the visit to Sea Marconi in February 2011 by a delegation of Japanese experts and then, in May 2012 in Tokyo, the workshop where Sea Marconi outlined its solution for the management and decontamination of transformers with insulating oils contaminated with PCBs. This event marked the start of an intense activity of laboratory research, because passing from 2 mg/kg to 0.2 mg/kg as the limit for PCB detectability seemed to be a really challenging objective. 
First objective achieved!!! A few months after the Tokyo workshop, Sea Marconi research developed a specific in-house method, succeeding in determining a value of 0.2 mg/kg of PCBs.

As mentioned, the project aims to achieve a twofold objective; after determining the PCB threshold required by Japan (0.5 mg/kg), this same threshold must become the target for the activity of decontamination of oils contained in electric transformers. Final success draws near; in Sweden, Sea Marconi has succeeded in obtaining an extraordinary PCB value: 0.37 mg/kg.

At this point, it is necessary to develop an integrated technological solution fully complaint with the severe Japanese market; this means implementing new procedures and methods and techniques in Sea Marconi's consolidated CDP Process to adapt this to the new target. Recently, during the last three-day meeting held at the beginning of March 2014, an entire day was dedicated to visiting a site where Sea Marconi staff and equipment are engaged in decontaminating a transformer. The rest of the stay of the delegation was dedicated to analysing business scenarios for introduction of Sea Marconi services in Japan which is ever closer.