Comparing commercial and lab methods of maintaining chlorine in pool water.
Why is chlorine added to water?
It is important to maintain and check water quality for any pool and spa operators. Disinfecting the water itself is critical to protect against any pathogens and disease within the water itself, and the chlorine amount in water is best managed by regular routine and monitoring the chlorine feed of the water to insure optimum chlorine levels within the water . The ideal chlorine levels in water are on an average of 1.5, and the pH levels of the water should be between 7.2 and 7.6 as the pH of human tears are 7.4, meaning that the eyes will not become irritated in these levels. A reading lower than 7.0 will have an acidic effect, which could cause damage to the pool equipment , anything above 7.8 will have an alkaline effect which can cause a scaling effect on the pool. There are in fact to methods of controlling and maintaining chlorine amounts in water, these are laboratory methods and commercial methods.
How does chlorine work? When chlorine is added to water, it destroys the membranes of microorganisms and kills them. This process only works though if the chlorine comes into direct contact with the microorganisms. If the water contains particles like silt or sand, then bacteria may not be reached by the chlorine as they may be residing within these particles. Chlorine also only disinfects and does not purify the water. Also chlorine takes time to kill the microorganisms, and appropriate time must be given depending on the temperature of the water, for the chlorine to have a good effect at killing of any bacteria.
Laboratory method of testing water: The easiest method for testing for chlorine is like the experiment that I have already carried out, by adding DPD (diethyl paraphenylene diamine) indicator to the chlorine water, but instead using a piece of equipment called a comparator. Within the comparator one tablet of DPD is added to the sample of water, colouring it red. The strength of the colour is measured against other colours within the comparator on a chart-based system, which then determines the chlorine concentration, the stronger the colour, the higher the chlorine concentration within the water.
The positive outcomes of testing chlorine in ordered and specific way that a laboratory method would, is that the measurements of chlorine gathered would be more precise giving a more true chlorine value in the actual pool water. However this method would take far more time to do, meaning that by the time the results of the chlorine amount of the water have a appeared, the actual chlorine levels within the water may have changed by then.
Commercial method of testing water:
First a sample method is taking at around elbow depth in the same piece of equipment, a comparator, then reagents R001 test the total chlorine levels, this is then compared to other colours as before, this only measures the free chlorine within the actual pool. To measure the total chlorine reagent R002 is then added to the free chlorine.
This method is far more quicker and less time consuming, however the reagents used are not actually given any chemical names which could have affected the chlorine within
