Oxygenated Water System and Co2 system

[JasonLion]

That really doesn't tell us anything at all about the cost. If the hardware drawing that electricity costs $1,000,000 no one will be able to afford to even rent one. If it a more reasonable $10,000 then renting it will be practical but purchase is out of the question for most people. While if it is $10 then we all want one right this moment.

Likewise, if it really reduces the PH to somewhere in the 4 range then hardly anyone will ever want to try it except in an emergency because of the damage to the pool from repeated use.

 

[Smykowski]

800 watts x 24 hrs. $4.50 (including oxygen)

Turn it on, come back next day, turn off. Let algae sink to bottom for a few hours then vacuum.
The pool service company that tested it yesterday in Scottsdale said it worked far better than anything they had ever seen before. No chemicals. 20,000 gal pool at a condo complex.

What is the pH of the bulk pool water during this process?

 

[Bama Rambler]

No chemicals. 20,000 gal pool at a condo complex.

you do realize that oxygen and carbon dioxide ARE chemicals, right? And once your treatment is complete you still have to have a sanitizer so you can't really tout chemical free.

 

[geotommy]

okay yes oxygen is a chemical. Oxygenating water does not change pH levels. Our experiment test algae treatment not sanitize treatment. That will be performed in a lab. We do not sell our equipment we rent it for $300 per month.

 

[jblizzle]

But you just said we only need it for a day to kill the algae

No homeowner is going to pay $300/mo to rent that system when the chlorine methods cost < $50 without the pH issues (well, if you did the CO2 as well).

 

[geotommy]

Well I think I could argue about that there are several homeowners about to test our system in Scottsdale For that price, but our main focus is renting to pool service companies. Some of the threads I have read in this forum people have stated they have spent days trying to shock their pool due to algae problems and costs were not insignificant.

 

[jblizzle]

Well, Scottsdale is pretty different than the rest of AZ

I suppose I could see the system working better for a service company to allow clearing of multiple pools than for personal homeowner use. I think there is still a lot of testing to do to fully understand the implications of some of the side-effects (notably the possibly very low pH).

 

[anonapersona]

I've killed fish with oxygen . I've killed fish with CO2 also. Just because it is common does not mean it is not dangerous.

 

[JasonLion]

From a pool service company point of view, assuming the PH issue is resolved, this could be a very handy thing. Pool service people don't want to do anything that takes days, they want whatever taken care of right away. This could be very attractive for that reason alone. For homeowners it makes far less sense.

 

[chem geek]

As shown in the sequence of photos in this link, killing all the algae when shocking a pool is not normally the most time consuming part of the process. Notice how much of the floating algae in the pool gets killed and falls to the bottom after 10 minutes. What takes a long time is the full filtration of large algae clumps if people do not vacuum-to-waste and the more complete oxidation and filtration needed to get the water from cloudy to clear. This latter stage is the longest and varies depending on the quality of circulation and filtration and has nothing to do with killing the algae. In a cloudy (not green) pool after the initial chlorine shock, the algae has all died and the chlorine has bleached out the chlorophyll so what is left is to remove that organic matter from the pool, not to kill it (since it's now already dead).

Now if a pool has very high CYA levels, it takes extraordinarily high FC levels to kill the algae quickly so your system might be helpful in that case, but then you are still left with a high CYA pool and since the answer to that is water dilution, why not just dilute the water first to get the CYA lower and then shock to kill the algae? Also, once one gets their pool in good shape, the prevention with proper chlorine levels relative to the CYA level prevents algae growth so you don't get this problem again. That's the experience of most on this forum. They don't get regular algae outbreaks. The most common algae scenarios are for those who close their pools over the winter and don't close and re-open them while the water if very cold (< 50ºF). It's warm water situations with no chlorine where there can be a lot of algae on opening.

For a service tech, the more classic approach is to shock the pool with chlorine with the pump on, then after a short time add a good flocculant (e.g. OMNI Liquid Floc Plus) and turn off the pump. After overnight or from morning to late afternoon vacuum-to-waste and then start circulation again.

Now if you were to tell me that your oxygen system were to act as a super clarifier consolidating algae cells so that the water gets to crystal clear much faster, then that's something else though would need to be compared in cost to a good clarifier or flocculant or to Adding DE to a Sand Filter.

Do you have photos showing a pool full of algae and showing what happens over time using your process? Perhaps that can help explain the situation better since a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

[geotommy]

I've killed fish with oxygen . I've killed fish with CO2 also. Just because it is common does not mean it is not dangerous.

With our system oxygen saturation does not kill fish even at super oxygenated levels because we do not bubble, micro diffuse etc. Bubbles are an irritant to fish gills and they develop mucus like a pneumonia in humans. One of our clients has 500,000 fish per farm and the fish swim towards the oxygenated water when surrounding waters show low DO.

I know it's a strange concept to wrap your head around... but we are unique in different industries.
I have yet to meet a scientist who has ever seen near 20ppm Dissolved Oxygen that doesn't immediately escape. And I can tell you a few scientists at UofA nearly fell off their chairs when we demonstrated 45ppm in a 50 gal barrel. Went away for lunch came back later, DO still 45ppm.
It's a lot of fun watching scientists discover something new : )

A pool oxygenated to 30 ppm DO, left still, no pumps . Branches, leaves can fall in. Two days later, oxygenate pool for an hour or two. Pool stays pristine like a lake up north with lots of oxygen. Crystal clear, even though lots of bio falls in every day. True

 

[chem geek]

I don't know why the scientists find it so surprising since the equilibrium concentration of oxygen in water is on the order of 7.5 to 8 ppm or so (at typical pool temperatures) so 45 ppm is only a factor of 5-6 higher than equilibrium. The equilibrium amount of carbon dioxide in pool water at pH 7.5 would give a carbonate alkalinity of around 9 ppm, yet one can easily have a pool with 100 ppm TA or even 200 ppm TA and have it stay that way for hours and hours without the pH rising that quickly. If there is no aeration of the water, then the process of outgassing is rather slow, but if you churn/aerate the water, then you can remove the excess gasses much more quickly. We do this here on the forum all the time as part of the process of lowering TA which is a combination of acid addition with aeration of the water at low pH to more quickly drive off (outgas) carbon dioxide. If the scientists you are working with don't understand this, then they do not sound competent.

It sounds like the scientists are mostly surprised that you are able to get the DO level up in the first place, but that's no miracle and simply means using a much more efficient injection system using very tiny bubbles (increased surface area) and higher pressures. The equilibrium concentration of oxygen in water if you were to use 100% oxygen at atmospheric pressure would be around 40 ppm, but due to less than 100% efficiency you'd have to use higher than atmospheric pressure, but achieving 80% efficiency using an efficient injection system is certainly possible and is done with high-quality ozone systems, for example. Getting to 45 ppm would be done with an 80% efficient unit using at least 1.4 atmospheres pressure of oxygen and in practice higher pressures than that for reasonably fast and efficient transfer. If you are not using oxygen under pressure, then yes that would be a miracle -- technically impossible to get above 40 ppm even with 100% efficiency (because at 1 atm of pure oxygen, the equilibrium amount in water is 38-40 ppm at pool temperatures). Now if you have colder water, then you can have higher oxygen levels. Water at 50ºF has 11.3 ppm oxygen at equilibrium with air so with 1 atmosphere injected and 80% efficiency that's 45 ppm. Is that what you are talking about? If so, then this is no miracle and again if the scientists you are working with don't understand this, then they do not sound competent.

A crystal clear pool is not a disinfected pool. Even if you were to prevent uncontrolled bacterial growth, you still have to prevent person-to-person transmission of disease from bacteria in their fecal matter. A copper/silver ion combination will prevent uncontrolled bacterial growth yet kills too slowly to be used in commercial/public pools without chlorine and is not EPA approved without chlorine since copper/silver does not pass EPA DIS/TSS-12. Oxygen in high concentrations kills even more slowly than copper/silver so there's no way it would be approved by the EPA for disinfection in swimming pools and spas.