Secrets - Most Ozone
Generator Manufacturers Do Not Want
YOU To Know.
Here is something that is going to shock you a bit. A few
weeks ago, I received a call from Bob, an engineer responsible for water
treatment and disinfection at a large industrial plant. He was horrified, as he
had just purchased two 60 g/h ozone generators for $15,000 from a ozone
generator manufacturer and they did not work.
He had done everything he was advised to do by the
manufacturer’s application specialist, but after running his system for more
than an hour, he was absolutely shocked when he found out that he had
only 4 grams of ozone dissolved in water
out of 120 gramm produced.
I had told Bob, that it is not his fault and there is
nothing wrong with his system. The problem is with his ozone generators, which
although producing a respectful amount of ozone, had such a low ozone
concentration level that they were not suitable for water treatment.
I had revealed
to Bob a connection between ozone concentrations and amount of dissolved ozone
in water.
We had replaced his two 60 g/h ozone generators with one
high concentration 30 g/h generator on my advice, to illustrate the point. His
system had successfully dissolved 16 g of ozone into the water -
4 times more ozone for a quarter of the price!
Ozone concentration is the key to dissolving
ozone in water, but nobody wants to talk about it....
It is a secrets most
air-cooled ozone generator's manufacturers do not want you to know.
Why they do not want
you to know...?
Because most of the air-cooled generators on the market
produce ozone at concentrations 1-3% by weight.
The truce is that at these concentrations it is hard or
almost impossible to dissolve any reasonable amount of ozone in water. In most
applications, only 5-10% of ozone produced is being dissolved (or even much
less) and that would mean that 90-95% of ozone will create off gas, which you
will have to destroy together with the money you had paid to produce the ozone.
Why...?
Because in practice, even a 3 wt% ozone generator vs. 6 wt%
requires 2 times more oxygen to produce the same amount of ozone and dissolves
half as much ozone into the water or less.
As an example, a 30 g/h ozone generator at 3 wt%
concentration will dissolve in water about 10 g/h of ozone and will require 12.5
slpm (standard litters of oxygen per minute). A generator producing 30 g/h at 6
wt% will dissolve about 20 g/h and will require only 6.25 slpm of oxygen.
Simply put it means that if you buy an ozone generator,
which delivers only 3-wt% concentration,
it will cost you twice as much as it would if you bought a 6 wt%
generator.
If you compare two quotations in our above example, you
will have the following results. To have 20g/h ozone dissolved in water you will
pay:
| |
3%
Concentration |
6% Concentration |
|
Ozone Generator |
60
g/h @ $7,500 |
30
g/h @ $4,500 |
|
Oxygen Concentrator |
25 slpm @ $6,000 |
6.25 slpm @ $1,500 |
|
Total: |
$13,500 |
$6,000 |
This represents a
total savings of
$7,500!
If you want to start saving your money now,
please select the right ozone generator for your water treatment application at
www.absoluteozone.com
Why...?
Because, ozone concentration is one of the
most important
parameters of ozone generators. The websites of three of the world’s
largest ozone generator manufacturers, will have phrases like; "All our ozone
generators are capable of producing ozone with concentrations of up to 14
percent by weight (wt%) using oxygen"; "High concentration ozone generation
maximizes efficiency and lowers operational costs" or
"High ozone concentration is vital to high levels
of dissolved ozone".
Why...?
Because, more than 90% of air-cooled ozone
generators sold in North America today, produce ozone concentration less than 3%
by weight.
And their manufacturers will recommend using an air fed
ozone generator for water treatment. The main reason is that an air fed
ozone generator is cheaper and therefore you are more likely to buy it. The
other reason and they do not tell you about it is, that once you install the
system you will start noticing that it does not work as well as you expected it
to and when you complain, they will recommend that you purchase additional
equipment to fix the problem. Since you are hooked, you will spend more money.
Good for their business, but not so good for you.
There is also the maintenance cost of air fed ozone
generators to consider. This usually involves the time consuming tasks of taking
the ozone generator apart every few month, scraping deposits from the ozone
generator electrodes, then putting it all back together, replacing damaged
gaskets and other parts along the way.
The bottom line is that, unless you are very wealthy and
enjoy cleaning and fixing ozone generators,
do not buy an air fed ozone generator.
If you feel that you do not want to support
mediocrity, inferior and wasteful technology with your money, chose the right
equipment for your application.
To see some of the most technologically advanced,
air-cooled ozone producing equipment,
please visit
www.absoluteozone.com
If you feel that I am biased, please read the following. It
may convince you that there is more to it than my personal opinion.
The first issue is that air contains only 21% of oxygen and
it is therefore impossible to create high concentration ozone from it.
Typically, a good air fed ozone generator will not produce more then 1.5 wt%
ozone concentration.
From the earlier explanation, you know that
you will have a problem dissolving all of that
low concentration ozone gas into the water causing most of it to
"off gas" dissipating into the surrounding air versus dissolving into the water.
Since ozone is highly corrosive you will therefore have to ensure that proper
precautions are taken to destroy this ozone before it goes in to the air causes
harm. This can be accomplished using a proper ozone destruct unit.
Another important disadvantage of air fed ozone generators
is that the Nitrogen and humidity in the feed air creates calcium like deposits
on the surface of the electrodes. Similar to a car, if you do not do
preventative maintenance on the air fed ozone generator after a while these
deposits will diminish your ozone production by restricting
heat transfer from the plasma in the ozone cell. Heat destroys ozone and
therefore the higher the temperature inside the generator the more ozone will be
destroyed by it. Interestingly, it is not uncommon that an air fed ozone
generator will
produce half as much ozone as when it was
first used after only 6 months of use.
I ask myself a question, who are the real
beneficiaries of this practically obsolete technology?
Of the ozone generators which do very little good and
consume our resources, creating reputation that ozone is not efficient, is
expensive, requires a lot of maintenance and is not reliable?
Eureka! The companies which
produce and sell chemicals. The companies, which keep our planet clean, by
cleaning everything with chemicals. They are the winners.
And you can support them.
To summarize, my sincere hope is that the above information
will help you to select the correct ozone generator for your application, to
calculate the real operating cost of your ozone system, and to give you the
background information you need to be able
to ask the right questions when speaking with a sales person.
I am hoping that you will have many years of enjoyment from
this wonderful ecologically clean treatment technology instead of many years of
aggravations, troubles and disappointment and lost money.
Should you desire to delve deeper into some of the points I
have illustrated above, please feel free to contact me with your questions. Here
is my contact information:
Misha Shifrin MS. Eng.
MishaS@AbsoluteOzone.com
(780) 486-3761
P.S. To see high concentration air-cooled ozone
generators, which will work well for your application ,
click here
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