Lowering cya with ammonia then shock

[mikech]

I assume it can't otherwise somebody would have done it, but can't CYA be reduced/oxidised to ammonia or nitrates with a safe chemical reaction rather than biochemical (as in bacterial degradation), and then the amount of ammonia measured using currently available color change testing techniques, correlating back to the amount of CYA in a sample?

 

[chem geek]

As described in Degradation of Cyanuric Acid (CYA), one can oxidize CYA with a LOT of chlorine (according to a patent, it goes faster at higher pH of around 9.0) where essentially hypochlorite attacks a chlorinated cyanuriate species (Wojtowicz proposed Cl₂Cy^-) in water. It goes all the way to nitrogen gas because the resulting ammonia gets further oxidized by chlorine. It would be difficult to stop the reaction just at the ammonia stage.

Unfortunately, CYA is a rather hardy molecule. That's good from the point of view of having it last, but not good when you want to get rid of it.