Ozone Sanitation is Natural and Powerful
Ozone gets a bad rap. It is associated in many peoples’ minds with smog, but the beneficial side of ozone is largely unknown.
The fact is that ozone is one of nature’s most powerful oxidizers – and oxidation is the natural process that purifies water and other substances. Ozone provides clean, pollution-free sanitation in all kinds of applications including residential swimming pools. And unlike harsh chemicals or salt, ozone creates no dangerous byproducts, corrosion or disposal issues. It leaves behind only ordinary oxygen.
Ozone, Oxidation, and Sanitation
Ozone is a kind of oxygen molecule that has 3 oxygen atoms (O3). Ozone’s power is that the 3rd oxygen atom easily splits off to combine with other substances – that’s the ‘oxidation’ process – leaving behind beneficial oxygen (O2). The substance the extra oxygen atom combines with is neutralized or killed.
Where does ozone come from?
Ozone (O3) is unstable because when it comes into contact with other substances, it oxidizes them. So if it keeps disappearing through oxidation and reverting to typical oxygen (O2), where does it come from?
In nature, ozone is produced mainly by sunlight and lightning. Both of these powerful forces can sometimes split the strong bond that holds the two atoms of ordinary oxygen together, creating free oxygen atoms. These free atoms immediately seek to bond with O2 oxygen molecules and ozone is formed.
The fact that ozone in nature is unstable is why the protective ozone layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays is damaged by CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) that escape from refrigerant systems. The ozone in the upper atmosphere tries to oxidize the CFCs and destroys itself in the process.
Ozone Generators Create Ozone for Sanitation
Back down on earth, ozone generators create beneficial ozone to use in a wide variety of sanitation applications. DEL is the ozone technology leader in developing Advanced Sanitation Solutions for swimming pools, hot tubs, jetted bath tubs, food safety and preservation, ozone laundry solutions, and many other applications important to human health and wellbeing. The current generation of ozone generators for residential swimming pools provide reliable and powerful automatic pool water sanitation for pools of all kinds.
Ozone from the pool’s ozone generator acts just like ozone in nature: it oxidizes substances it comes into contact with. This includes a wide range of chemicals and organics that can be oxidized, including bacteria, viruses, algae, oils, human fluids, fungus, chlorine byproducts like chloramines, and some metallic elements. This potent oxidizer combines with contaminants so rapidly that it usually exists in pool water only a very short time, leaving nothing behind but ordinary oxygen (O2).
Ozone is a better sanitizing agent than other alternatives, acting against a wider range of contaminants, including dangerous water-borne illnesses like cryptosporidium which chlorine cannot kill. See the alternative sanitizers comparison.
