Dec
8
Choose Your Swimming Pool Chlorine Alternative – A Guide to Safer Swimming Pool Water Purification
Filed Under Safety, Maintenance & Cleaning
Although many swimming pools rely on chlorine to keep them clean, harsh chemical chlorination isn’t the only option around. There are in fact several popular swimming pool chlorine alternative choices that have been proven just as effective as chemical chlorination, but without its dangerous properties.
What’s the big fuss about chlorine? Chlorine is very effective at both killing live organisms, such as algae & bacteria, and getting rid of undesirable organic compounds, such as sunscreen & body oils. But chlorine is not a very human friendly substance either. Chlorine as a gas will irritate skin, mucous membranes, and the lungs. Over 1000 ppm (parts per million) can kill humans while just the smallest amount can inflame asthmatics. What makes chlorine particularly dangerous to swimmers however is its ability to easily enter the skin and turn into carcinogenic elements.
The following are a few popular chlorine alternatives for pools:
Salt Chlorination
Salt chlorination cleans the pool the same way that standard chlorination does. But instead of using harsh chemicals to chlorinate the pool, it just does it with plain old table salt. But you can’t dump a box of it in your pool and expect it to work. You have to instead, use a chlorine generator, which generates the chlorine from the salt in the water. Salt chlorination does not lead to chlorine free swimming pools, but it greatly reduces the amount of chlorine in the pool at any one time by supplying the pool with a constant low level of chlorination.
Bromine
Bromine is chemically similar to chlorine and is a popular chlorine alternative for pools that are shielded from the sun, i.e. indoor pools. Bromine breaks down quickly when exposed to sunlight and is therefore ineffective in sanitizing outdoor pools. The advantage of bromine is that it combines with organic compounds to form bromamine, a substance that is considerably less hazardous than chlorine’s byproduct, chloramine. Additionally, unlike chloramine, bromamine breaks down naturally in the pool, eliminating the need for the shock treatments required for chlorinated pools.
Ionization
Ionization is a water sanitization technique that utilizes copper and silver ions (charged particles) to kill bacteria and algae. This method relies on a device called an ionizer that releases these ions into the water. Ions kill live organisms but do little to get rid of other undesirable organic gunk such as sunscreen, and body oils. Consequently, swimming pools that rely on ionization as their primary method of purifications also require some chlorination. But the good news is that ionized pools typically need only 20% of the chemicals used by pools that utilize chlorine alone.
Some ionizers produce enough ions to require no standing levels of chlorine, but only periodic shock treatments with high chlorine doses. This makes them an ideal swimming pool chlorine alternative for people concerned about swimming in chlorine of even low concentration.
Ozonation
Ozone is a substance made of three oxygen atoms, and like copper and silver ions discussed above, is another chlorine alternatives for pools that acts to kill bacteria and other live microscopic organism. Ozonation relies on an ozonator device that releases the ozone molecules into the water. Like ionization, ozonation also requires some chlorine treatment to get rid of undesirable organic substances in the pool.
