E-Clear System

[aho.lwi]

So im fed up with using my TCCA tablets and apparently iv been sold on the idea of using an E-Clear System which uses Oxygen radicals and metal ions to disinfect & oxidize.

From my understand ozone can only be used as a secondary disinfectant much like ionizers so my question is whether i can completely run this system without using chlorine/bromine?

What are the differences from Oxygen radicals and ozone? I mean if the developers claim that oxygen radicals are more reactive does that not mean its half life will also be alot shorter?

I would love you input in terms of the pros and cons of using this system. Iv posted link below for your reference.

http://www.eclear.co.za/

 

[spishex]

A quick rundown of claims:

The e-clear ‘100% Chlorine Free’ New Generation 7 series - provides multiple forms of toxic free oxygen, which splits into 4 powerful oxidisers. (01) - (02) - (0H) - (H202).

This Patented and advanced technology provides ‘Natural Oxygen’ via electronic oxidation plus germicidal ionization and ultraviolet.

This combined technology results in the total elimination of all algae, bacteria and a host of viruses including cryptosporidium whilst still providing the required oxidation to qualify as a stand alone 100% toxic free fresh water sanitiser not requiring 1 gram of chlorine, bromine, ozone or salt.

Hydroxyl radical is a very powerful, non-selective, oxidizing agent that reacts rapidly with organic compounds until their overall mineralization, i.e., the transformation of initial pollutants into carbon dioxide, water and inorganic ions. It also kills 100% of all bacteria including E.coli and other chlorine-resistant bacteria and viruses. The E-clear “Natural Freshwater Oxygen” system produces 4 non-toxic oxidizers O1 – O2 – OH – H2O2 all in gas form through special patented plates at a rate of up to 80 grams per minute (80% more effective than chlorine). Our oxygen electrodes last for ever and come with a 5 year guarantee!

This one's my favorite:

We do not need to be concerned about the alkalinity as our oxygen technology produces alkalinity within the water molecule - just as water was created to do. This is due to the increased dissolved oxygen in the water produced by our oxygen producing electrodes. So even at pH levels of 6.8 our water is soft gentle and non-irritating to the skin.

Wait, no. THIS is:

Copper ionization is not a chemical. it is the most efficient algaecide known to mankind.

http://www.eclear.co.za/faqs.php

 

[spishex]

The same answer holds true for this system as with any other ozone, UV, ionization, etc. system: You still need a residual sanitizer in the water. IF this thing generated enough hydrogen peroxide to sanitize you'd not be experiencing the sublime comfort that is described on their website. And I'm no chemist but don't OH and O2 ions exist in water anyway?

In the end, you can either spend your money on this thing and maintain a chlorine residual, or just maintain a chlorine residual. Have you not considered a chlorine generator instead of the tabs?

 

[learthur]

2 years ago I also considered the E-clear system before I knew what I know now. I spoke with people in my area who had it. In summary negative reviews. Here are the problems with it.

1) Copper is a great algaecide but it doesn't remove the organic (urine and leaves and suntan oils/lotions) contaminants which rapidly build up in a pool.

2) If you look at the energy consumption of the "free oxygen" producing unit you can calculate that the amount of any type of oxidizer they claim to produce is NO WHERE EVEN CLOSE to what you need to clear the urine and organic load from your pool. A simple ozone generator would actually produce a REAL amount of oxidizer, but all these free oxygen, ozone, hydroxyl radical oxidation systems have a very BIG problem. They won't tell you, but to produce enough to actually clean your pool would cost a LOT of money (i.e. $10,000 up). The technology is in its infancy and sounds great on paper as long as you don't know exactly how much oxidizer a typical pool requires. Since most pool owners don't know how much oxidation it takes to maintain pool water quality, they are easily duped on this scam.

Now for the interesting part:

Do what I did: Go buy a SWG system. You get the benefits of an algae free pool and a sanitized pool and an adequately oxidized pool all from one unit instead of 2.

And now for the super interesting part: SWG systems make their own free radical oxidation products through the electrolytic process just like the E-clear system does. The upside is they also make chlorine at the same time in quantities that are useful.

Chlorine Bad?
You were probably looking at the E-clear system because:
1) You are worried chlorine could affect your health negatively or
2) You are a progressive hi-tech early adopter personality looking for the most efficient way to sanitize your pool.

Either way, the SWG is probably the answer for you.

Learning the hard way vs. the easy way:
So now you can try the E-clear and waste a bunch of money and then when you get fed up with it buy a SWG and be very happy, or you can just buy the SWG to start with. Either way you win. Pathway #1 will require more money, but you will have a stronger appreciation for the effectiveness of the SWG when you get there. Pathway #2 requires less money and gets you to a happy endpoint sooner.

What is the worst for my health?
The worst thing for your health is a pool full of copper that takes hours to days to kill pathogens if ever and never removes cancer causing organic compounds which continue to accumulate in your pool, month after month and year after year.

Good luck on your journey.

Lee

 

[Ohm_Boy]

The worst thing for your health is a pool full of copper...[snip]

It's also pretty bad on hair and pool surfaces. Stains 'em green.

 

[Aquaclear-NZ]

This one is the absolute best

Is there a size limit for pools?
No, e-clear systems have been installed in spas, Jacuzzis and domestic pools to commercial pools of over 10 million litres. e-clear can handle large water volumes due to the efficiency of the natural oxygen process which by far exceeds that of ozone, UV and chlorine/salt systems.

Oh no - i was wrong - this is

Time for a Global phase-out
All over the world, chlorine-containing industrial chemicals are wrecking havoc with the environment and our health.
1. Chlorinated compounds are destroying the ozone layer that shields life on earth from ultraviolet radiation.
2. Hundreds of chlorine-based poisons are slowly building up worldwide in the air, water and food chain - and in our bodies as well.
3. New scientific evidence implicates these chemicals in severe and widespread health problems in people and wildlife, including infertility, impaired childhood development, immune system damage and cancer.

very soon we will see
3. Chlorine is produced by Al Queda and is responsible for global terrorism :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah:

Looks like the ioniser manufacturers have a new update out now - addition of an oxidising agent or ozone generator

 

[chem geek]

Time for a Global phase-out
All over the world, chlorine-containing industrial chemicals are wrecking havoc with the environment and our health.
1. Chlorinated compounds are destroying the ozone layer that shields life on earth from ultraviolet radiation.
2. Hundreds of chlorine-based poisons are slowly building up worldwide in the air, water and food chain - and in our bodies as well.
3. New scientific evidence implicates these chemicals in severe and widespread health problems in people and wildlife, including infertility, impaired childhood development, immune system damage and cancer.

The chlorinated compounds they are talking about are generally chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFCs) that are a problem because they are relatively long-lived so can survive going into the upper atmosphere where they catalyze reactions that destroy ozone. These CFCs were most commonly used as refrigerants but are now mostly replaced with compounds that have less or no effect on ozone. However, chlorine is not at all long-lived and in sunlight readily breaks down so it doesn't get very far in the atmosphere and therefore doesn't affect ozone. Relatively little outgasses from a pool anyway and it is mostly hypochlorous acid (not chlorine gas) that gets fairly quickly broken down by sunlight.

The "chlorine-based poisons" that build up and cause the most health problems are things like dioxins and dioxin-like compounds such as polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and polychlorinated biphenyls. These are not chlorine nor are they produced in pool water. Dioxins are typically formed at specific high temperatures found in burning certain organic materials in high-temperature furnaces and the subsequent cooling of product gasses.

There are disinfection by-products (DPB) from chlorination in pool water, but they are at a very low level, especially in pools with Cyanuric Acid (CYA) that are outdoors exposed to sunlight and with good air circulation and with low bather loads (as with most residential pools). They are generally irritants (such as nitrogen trichloride) and noticeable as "bad" pool smell in improperly maintained pools.

It is very irresponsible for the company making the E-Clear System to state general facts about one set of chlorine compounds in an attempt to deceive people into thinking that the chlorine in pools is in the same category. They might as well be telling people to stop eating salt since it contains chloride -- a form of chlorine. Every chemical compound is different and just because there is a common atom/element between them does not mean one can draw general conclusions about the health or environmental effects.

Richard

 

[aho.lwi]

I guess ill be going for a SWG but then again im rather puzzled as to these Oxygen radicals they are talking about, what are they referring to? Is it not ozone thats being produced and used..?

I wonder if what they claim are all lies but nothing more than an ozone and an ionizer combined.

 

[teapot]

aho.lwi,

pretty much of what has been said so far should be enough to convince you.

If the oxygen, hydrogenperoxide, free radicals, active oxygen, etc, etc, were produced in sufficient quantity there maybe a chance of the system working as they say. If it did they would not need to add the UV system to the back end.

I contacted the designer of the system who IMHO had not got a clue what they were talking about.

The bulk of the work is being done by the ioniser section producing copper and silver ions which does allow you to run a lower chlorine level. Adding copper does not automatically turn hair green or stain pools, an excess might especially if the PH is allowed to drift. This is why TFP do not recommend its use by people who do not have a full understanding of it's application.

There is a new technology that uses diamond encrusted, boron/titanium plates instead of titanium and these can produce 400 times the oxy radicals of the titanium plates and that may be useful. There is as far as I know only one company using this technology and that is MG international and they are using a very low level of salt probably to produce a low level chlorine residual. Their litrature states chemical free which is as usual nonsense as salt is a chemical.
It is marketed under the name Oxineo in partnership with Adamantec the developers of the diamond plate technology http://www.adamantec.com/datas/Oxineo-EN_0113-01-0605-s_002.pdf

It is new and there is not much information around about the system but it is expensive compared to most.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

You can get green hair from levels as low as .3ppm, even when combined with low ph of around 7.2.

"Copper is not forever". Similar to high calcium or high CYA levels, copper is only removed from the pool is through water replacement. TFP doesn't recommend it for anyone, because there are other products that do the same job without the possible side effects.

 

[aho.lwi]

Never doubted TFP, you guys are really the professionals. I was just wondering what all this E-Clear Crud was about, i still dont get the free radicals approach with oxygen splitting into all these different elements.

 

[teapot]

Without a shadow of doubt Chem geek is the best person to explain this if you really want to know.

In basic terms, water H2O is split using an electric current in the same way that salt water is split in a chlorine generator (SWG).

In a salt water pool you have sodium chloride (salt) and water the electric current makes several new chemical, hyperchlorus acid (HOCL), caustic soda sodium hydroxide (NAOH) etc.

A similar thing happens when you do the same to water and you form hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), oxygen O1 instead of O2 and maybe O3 Ozone also possibly Hydroxide (OH). This would produce a very potent killing machine for bacteria and algae etc.

These compounds prefer to be in the natural state so try to re-combine which provides a re-action that oxidises the nasties away. In theory!!!!

The only system that is likely to actually work is the Oxineo I mentioned earlier as it has the new plate which in the laboratory have proven the ability to actually produce a measurable amount of oxy radicals. The Oxineo still uses a very small amount of salt so it most likely generates chlorine too as a residual.

The E-clear however is basically using the same titanium plates used in a SWG and without the salt so a small re-action occurs aroung the electrodes which may and I do mean may produce the tiniest amounts of O1 and OH which last for a second before re-combining back into water so if the bacterial and algae are not stuck to the wall of the pool in a biofilm and make it into the chamber they may get killed.

I bet you wish you never asked :blah: :lol:

 

[chem geek]

The bottom line with any of these circulation-based systems that do not produce chlorine (i.e. UV, ozone, oxygen radicals, etc.) is that they do not provide a sustained residual disinfectant in the bulk pool water. They do nothing to kill pathogens in the hours they have to grow before getting circulated (remember that it takes 4.6 turnovers to have 99% of the water circulate) and they clearly don't touch pathogens growing on pool surfaces. They also do little to prevent person-to-person transmission of disease though for tough protozoan oocysts such as Cryptosporidium they (and microfiltration) are about all that is available. However, in residential pools, such pathogens are virtually unheard of since people with diarrhea seem to stay away from swimming in their own pools (or at least they limit who they can infect).

Since you pretty much have to have chlorine anyway (for a bulk water sanitizer), then the question is what additional value such systems provide. For indoor pools where maintaining water and air quality are more challenging, such systems, especially UV, can be useful at reducing chloramines. For outdoor pools, especially residential pools that never have heavy bather loads, such systems are clearly overkill. Also, something like oxygen radicals (including hydroxyl radical) follow a general rule: the more powerful the oxidant, the more short-lived. So if one had a serious introduction of bather and environment waste getting into the pool to frequently cloud it or produce disinfection by-products, then such extreme oxidizers could be useful to break them down, but normally standard filtration and chlorine oxidation do a perfectly fine job.

Richard

 

[teapot]

Just picking you up on the UV systems, especially for indoor pools. I would not entertain UV, I was a fan of UV and it works very well on fresh water aquariums, however when you add chlorine the chemistry alters and you begin to produce THM's ( tri-halomethane) gas such as chloroform. These carcinogens are most noticable at or just above the water level and these toxic chemicals are easily absorbed. Entire roof structures and air ducting systems have collapsed on swimmers due to the errosion of metalwork by THM's

UV is also very good at killing algae and bacteria that are UV dependant, what about the strains that are resistant to UV, they can flourish as a result of the others being wiped out.

Also consider how UV works, it chops up the bacteria and creates a much greater chlorine demand as the area of each chopped up bateria has now increased.

There is a very good chance that UV disinfection for pools will be outlawed in Europe.

So we have chlorine

 

[JasonLion]

Just picking you up on the UV systems, especially for indoor pools. I would not entertain UV, I was a fan of UV and it works very well on fresh water aquariums, however when you add chlorine the chemistry alters and you begin to produce THM's ( tri-halomethane) gas such as chloroform. These carcinogens are most noticable at or just above the water level and these toxic chemicals are easily absorbed. Entire roof structures and air ducting systems have collapsed on swimmers due to the errosion of metalwork by THM's

Trihalomethanes are both created and destroyed by UV. The levels will be extremely low in any properly maintained pool, with or without UV systems. The health effects of trihalomethanes from swimming pools are not considered to be significant compared to exposure from other sources, except for the occasional case of an indoor pools that is way out of balance.

UV is also very good at killing algae and bacteria that are UV dependant, what about the strains that are resistant to UV, they can flourish as a result of the others being wiped out.

Also consider how UV works, it chops up the bacteria and creates a much greater chlorine demand as the area of each chopped up bateria has now increased.

To the extent that there is actually enough organic waste (bacteria, viruses, algae) in the water for the UV to be breaking something down, it will be reducing the amount of chlorine required, not raising it. UV can break chlorine down directly, which is often the dominant effect, but if there is something for the UV to actually do, it reduces chlorine demand.

We are tying to kill everything in the water. If the UV actually kills any algae, it will be reducing the amount of work the chlorine needs to do, and thus helping to speed up the elimination of all of the algae. In practice, UV has no effect, positive or negative, vs algae, since way too little of the water is being exposed to UV at any one time to have any significant effect.

 

[chem geek]

Of the few reports of indoor pool owners on this forum who had problems with bad coughing from persistent chloramines, UV systems have helped. I agree that they are a mixed bag since they do create some byproducts but it's too early to tell if they are more harmful than good. Research by Dr. Ernest "Chip" Blatchley (from Purdue) and others on volatile disinfection by-products (and earlier on UV systems by-products) are trying to get more answers about the chemistry involved in the production of these by-products.

The main trihalomethane (THM) of concern (well, in large quantities) in chlorinated pools is chloroform and this does not appear to come from bather load (i.e. sweat and urine) but rather from humic acid in soil and probably from some other materials in lotions or other products (since indoor pools show chloroform and I doubt they get much dirt/soil). It's still way too early to tell what is going on -- it's definitely measured in Blatchley's work in pools, but not in the lab except smaller amounts from L-histidine. [EDIT] The more likely carcinogenic and nastier THMs are the brominated ones. [END-EDIT]

The German DIN 19643 standard uses as its core an approach no CYA and an activated carbon filter to remove all chloramines as well as chlorine, so that chlorine has to be re-injected after the filter. The chlorine levels are 0.2 to 0.6 ppm. There are additional supplements (such as ozone in 19643-3) allowed, but it's mostly the chlorine that is doing the disinfection (except for physical removal of Crypto by microfiltration or via the supplemental systems).

Richard

 

[teapot]

Thanks Richard,

It's a bit of a change for me defending chlorine over alternative methods, I am usually doing the reverse.

Jason you almost sound like a UV saleman :lol: (no offence meant) There is so much information from manufacturers that it is difficult to get to the facts.

The water must clean and clear and not contain any particles bigger than 25 microns if UV is to work properly so sand filters are pretty much out because of the channeling potetial. Absolutely no iron must be present in the water otherwise it coats the glass sleeve in a matter of weeks regardless of tube wipers (that is why the UV industry is trying to manufacture UV sleeves from PTFE).

UV at the correct level will reduce combined chloramines. Organic molecules are being chopped by UV light, this is how UV kills bacteria by breaking down the DNA molecule in the nucleus. UV light is therefore chopping up organic molecules into smaller and smaller bits, and as the size of the molecule decreases it becomes volatile and more likely to escape through the surface of the water as a chlorinated THM ( tri-halomethane) gas such as chloroform CHCl3 or as toxic volatile gases such as cyanogen chloride. http://www.greenfacts.org/en/water-disinfectants/l-2/water-disinfectants-1.htm#2

When UVc is used the chlorine demand is higher, the salesmen say it differently. As UV breaks down chlorine, it is near impossible to support the lower chlorine usage theory.

The German din standard is the only way UV should be used as it filters out the trihalomethane (THM) via activated carbon. The Danish Technological Institute Department for Swimming Pool Technology recommend that activated carbon should always be used after UVc to remove the THM`s
The Danish EPA have set an absolute limit of 50 ug/l.The levels of THM's recorded in indoor pools have been as high as 300 ug/l.

As Richard said above "What additional value does the system provide?"

 

[chem geek]

One also needs to distinguish between commercial/public pools with high bather loads vs. residential pools with low (to medium) bather loads. That seems to be a large factor that's more than a linear result in terms of by-products produced. Also, the DIN standard method of chlorine stripping isn't going to be very economical in a residential pool unless the turnover is low (in commercial/public pools, the idea is to have shorter turnovers). One thing that has been missing is trying to remove the original organic substances in the first place except for larger or charged substances -- though the DIN standard uses coagulation and filtration, I don't see anything in it that removes the organic precursors though the ozone adjunct may reduce them through oxidation of some of them.

Perhaps the activated carbon breaks up the combined chlorine substances and what remains in smaller pieces no longer combines with chlorine and is therefore innocuous (from that point of view). I'll have to look into this in more detail to see if that's what is presumably going on.

 

[aho.lwi]

Now i wonder where you all get this information and knowledge :-D , i hope i had someone who could teach so indepth.