On-Site Production of Ozone for Water Treatment

Ozone is an unstable compound and must be produced on-site using an ozone generator. Ozone can be produced from either air or oxygen. In the case of air and oxygen generated on-site using oxygen concentrators, no chemicals need to be purchased, transported or stored to produce ozone.

In some cases, the handling of these chemicals can be hazardous, such as gaseous chlorine, or expensive such as hydrogen peroxide, sodium chlorite or sodium hypochlorite. Ozone is an excellent disinfectant with CT values that are better than other disinfectants for important pathogens. It is also a more powerful oxidant than chlorine, chlorine dioxide and hydrogen peroxide.

Ozone generator systems are designed with both redundancy and ambient ozone monitors.Since ozone is produced as it is needed, a leak will result in a shut down of production of the affected system and the starting up of redundant generators. As a result, both safety and reliability are maintained.

Modern ozone generators come with computer control and can operate with limited operator attention for many years. Normal maintenance is periodic filter changes on gas lines and cleaning of the electrodes every one or two years. As a result the associated labor and maintenance costs are very low. On stream factors are 99.5% for high quality ozone generators.

On-site production of water treatment chemicals is becoming an increasing important issue for a variety of organizations, but especially for publicly owned drinking water plants for both Homeland Security issues as well as the reliability of chemical supply. Ozone provides and effective disinfectant/oxidizing acid that is both safe and reliable to produce.

A number of large cities have chosen ozone as part of their water treatment program including: Boston, Detroit, Orlando, Tampa, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Tacoma, Phoenix and metro Atlanta.