Reducing Toxic Chlorine Usage With A Low Cost System

Have you ever come back from the pool smelling like chlorine? With dry hair, itchy skin, a faded bathing suit? Has your mother ever told you not to drink pool water, because chlorine is “bad for you?” We all know chlorine isn’t necessarily good for you, but how much do we really know of its side-effects.

Used in World War I as a choking pulmonary agent, chlorine is now primarily used in drinking water and swimming pools to kill harmful bacteria.

A 2009 study from the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, showed swimming in chlorinated pools may increase the risk of a child getting asthma and respiratory allergies like hay fever. Researchers found that teenagers who spent more than 100 hours swimming in chlorinated pools were up to six times more at risk of having asthma than other teens.

One Israeli startup has decided that rather than inventing a completely new and usually costly sanitation system such as Ozone or Untraviolet-based ones, it would create a system that significantly reduces chlorine usage in water treatment.

According to Itay Tayas-Zamir, co-founder of Eco Vida, “chlorine is an evaporated substance, so in order to keep it effective we need to add more of it all the time, while it spreads toxic gases into the air.”

Eco Vida’s complex technology stabilizes chlorine activity so that less of it has to be used.

“Every liquid solution has a pH level that tells you its level of acidity or basicity,” explained Tayas-Zamir. “And the efficiency of chlorine is determined by the water’s pH level. Our system knows how to bring the pH level of water to the optimal effect.”

“Since chlorine is a substance that evaporates, what people usually do today is to add toxic stabilizers to keep pH level stable. Instead of that, what we do is stabilize the chlorine activity so that less chlorine significantly less chlorine is used.”

Tayas Zamir adds that his system can integrate with any existing system. “It can work in pools, hot-tubs, cooling systems, wastewater treatment factories, desalination facility and national water transport systems”.

Eco Vida says its system can reduce chlorine usage by 25 percent. Tayas-Zamir told NoCamels: “Large hotel chains spends millions of dollars on chlorine and we can reduce that by as much as a quarter.” For an Olympic-sized pool, Eco Vida’s system costs approximately $4,000.

Ecovida is now in the process of launching its system on the Israeli market and is waiting for additional funding to launch its product on the international market.

Photo by Ecovida and Alan Levine