It is my understanding that dichlor pucks or tabs are dichlorocyanuric acid C3HCl2N3O3 while granular dichlor is sodium dichlorocyanurate C3Cl2N3NaO3. However, PoolMath does not make a distinction between the two. Do both add the same amount of chlorine and CYA per weight?
Dichlor vs sodium dichlor
- Thread starter MPurcell
- Start date
Interesting. I can't find dichlor tablets at pool spa suppliers, but I thought 1" chlorine tablets are dichlor. Search indicates that both granular and tablets of sodium dichlor are produced, so apparently there is no dichloroisocyanuric acid, or straight dichlor tabs. Not that familiar with chlorine products.
All dichlor would be sodium dichlor, else it would be called trichlor, which is what the pucks/tabs are made of. Dichlor has a sodium atom in place of one of the 3 chlorine atoms that trichlor has. I'm sure that dichlor can be tabletized, but the point of it is to have a quick-dissolving form of CYA stabilized chlorine. The only advantage to dichlor tabs that I can think of would be that it is nearly pH neutral. There are 2 types of dichlor (anhydrous and dehydrate) that have slightly different available chlorine levels, but both are sodium dichlor which has CYA.
It seems from what I've read this afternoon that dichloroisocyanuric acid, which has two chlorines and a hydrogen, instead of two chlorines and a sodium as in sodium dichloroisocyanurate, and instead of three chlorines as in trichloroisocyanuric acid, is not used in pools and spas. Does anyone know if this is this accurate?
Oh... You're talking about this: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/dichloroisocyanuric_acid#section=Top I found another similar chemical online that has "OH" instead of "H" or "Na". Sorry, I'd never heard of these. Some chemist on here should be able to answer better, but my guess is that the pH would be different than sodium dichlor.
Would probably kill bacteria and algae, though not completely identical to pool dichlor.
Would probably kill bacteria and algae, though not completely identical to pool dichlor.