As a new Liquidator user I’m concerned about the trade-off of using it during day time while the pump is working.
In what follows “FC†means hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach.
When FC is introduced into the pool during day time it has three possible pathways:
Associating with CYA, decomposing by UV, and “doing its job†– oxidizing the “bad stuffâ€.
The rate of UV burn-out doesn’t depend on the concentration of FC. At any given moment, the same percentage of FC present will be decomposed by UV. However, the rate of association to CYA depends on the FC concentration. The more FC you have, the quicker it will react with CYA.
Since the association to CYA is not instantaneous, and since UV decomposition competes with it, adding FC by a continuous flow of a small dosage during day time is not efficient and it burns FC. On the other hand, you want to have your pool pump working during day time, because this is when you have bather load and this is when you need to add FC in order to compensate for its loss.
If you meter the bleach into the pool during night time, you’d expect that by sunrise most of the FC has already associated with CYA, and therefore this is a more efficient way of adding bleach. On the other hand, if you stop metering FC during day time, your FC level will drop. I guess this shouldn’t be an issue if you start the day with the “target level†of FC and end up at night with the minimum level. The only trade off is running the pump 24/7 and remembering to turn the flow control valve on and off.
Any comments?
In what follows “FC†means hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach.
When FC is introduced into the pool during day time it has three possible pathways:
Associating with CYA, decomposing by UV, and “doing its job†– oxidizing the “bad stuffâ€.
The rate of UV burn-out doesn’t depend on the concentration of FC. At any given moment, the same percentage of FC present will be decomposed by UV. However, the rate of association to CYA depends on the FC concentration. The more FC you have, the quicker it will react with CYA.
Since the association to CYA is not instantaneous, and since UV decomposition competes with it, adding FC by a continuous flow of a small dosage during day time is not efficient and it burns FC. On the other hand, you want to have your pool pump working during day time, because this is when you have bather load and this is when you need to add FC in order to compensate for its loss.
If you meter the bleach into the pool during night time, you’d expect that by sunrise most of the FC has already associated with CYA, and therefore this is a more efficient way of adding bleach. On the other hand, if you stop metering FC during day time, your FC level will drop. I guess this shouldn’t be an issue if you start the day with the “target level†of FC and end up at night with the minimum level. The only trade off is running the pump 24/7 and remembering to turn the flow control valve on and off.
Any comments?