Lower Cyanuric Acid, Reverse Osmosis, Ion Exchange

[09659]

Can I get a second opinion on this article? Thank you.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Dont-Risk...-Pool---Choose-a-Safe-Alternative!&id=5546679

The first of the two alternatives to draining is reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis on a swimming pool is performed by running the water through a large RO system housed in a trailer. The water is recycled back into the pool free from cyanuric acid and unwanted chemicals. Calcium levels can also be brought down to a lower, balanced range. The downside: it does not conserve all of the water and some of it is lost in the process. It is also a bit pricy for most pool owners to consider.

The second alternative to draining is ion exchange. Ion exchange employs the use of commercial grade water softeners along with activated carbon filters to filter out contaminants and hardness. The water is recycled through a system that is generally set up next to the swimming pool and runs silently for about 12 hours. All of the water is conserved and the unwanted chemicals are removed along with calcium harness and cyanuric acid. The calcium hardness is brought down to 150 to 200 parts per million leaving the swimming pool with sparkling healthy water. This treatment is more affordable than reverse osmosis.

 

[chem geek]

Reverse Osmosis will remove everything but the water so you can certainly lower CYA that way, but ion exchange only exchanges the calcium (and magnesium) for sodium so reduces water hardness or calcium hardness. Ion exchange will not reduce the levels of CYA. That article is wrong about that.

Now they also mentioned using "activated carbon filters" and those may remove CYA since they do remove a variety of organic compounds, but the activated carbon would have to have a very large capacity to handle pool water volumes. See this article form Wojtowicz regarding the relatively low loading (capacity) of activated carbon to adsorb CYA.

 

[09659]

Thank you.

 

[JamesW]

Also, note that RO services are only available in limited markets

 

[Texasjeff]

Activated carbon filters are used to eliminate the chlorine residual that may be left after neutralizing it. Chlorine will damage the membranes that remove the CYA. I operate an RO unit here is Austin, TX. I wish the filters would remove the CYA, I wouldn't need the membranes then!