Using completely new technology, AIS’s research and development team has developed unique low resistance and low activation voltage anode material. In combination with a specially designed power supply and electrolytic cell, this innovation allows the generation of sufficient amount of chlorine hypochlorite in the fresh water with Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of 50ppm or more. This new range will be sold under AIS’s Ecoline brand, and can produce a sufficient amount of disinfector from the small amount of natural mineral salts which are present in any fresh water source.

While most systems currently available for fresh water treatment are off-line on-site chlorine generation systems that require salt, water and electricity, Ecoline is an in-line on-site chlorine generator and requires only two basic ingredients: water and electricity. Chlorine is activated from the small amount of natural mineral salts present in the fresh water with Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of 50 ppm or more. This is in-line chlorination technology where fresh water passes through the cell and the required amount of chlorine is produced from the water itself and diluted immediately into the passing water.

Ecoline is energy efficient, requiring only six watts of energy for every gram of pure chlorine, compared to traditional 13 watts per gram of chlorine. The amount of chlorine is controlled electronically by the control board and voltage/amperage applied to the cell. There are no mechanical dosing pumps and no tanks are required to store chlorine. Ecoline has high ingress protection for hostile industrial environments, and is robust yet simple to install and operate. Other advantages include:

• Elimination of bulk storage and use of chemicals
• Removes transportation liabilities
• Reduces threat to public safety

Traditionally in the closed filtration systems, such as fresh water swimming pools, the TDS of the pool grows over time as more liquid or solid chlorine is added into the water. After a number of years of chlorination with chemicals, the fresh water in the swimming pool becomes too saturated, and in most cases salty (up to 3000 mg/L TDS). Olympic pools, for example, do not allow such high salt concentration since it can affect swimmers’ results. From time to time, the water in the fresh water pool must be dumped (because it is so salty it is not even able to be used for irrigation) and the pool must be refilled with new fresh water. Fresh water chlorination provides significant water saving because it activates natural chlorine from the small amount already present in the water mineral salts. Electrolysis is a closed process, and because no other chemicals are introduced into the water, the TDS of the water stays the same and changing pool water is not necessary. However, if a fresh water pool pH is balanced by the hydrochloric acid (HCl), the TDS will also grow due to acid being added to the system, however it will grow to much lesser extent (up to 10 times less) compared to the TDS grown in the chemically dosed pool. Therefore, with fresh water chlorine generator and HCl pH system, the TDS can be maintained to acceptable low levels without water change by running extensive backwash cycles when necessary. Furthermore, the backwash water is suitable to be used for irrigation.

A global study of the water footprints of nations, by international water experts Arjen Hoekstra and A. K. Chapagain, found that Australian households held the world's worst record for water consumption, despite the country’s industry and farmers being relatively efficient. Published in January 2007 in the journal Water Resources Management, the study found that Australian households had a "water footprint" equivalent to 341,000 litres per person per year. Ecoline is revolutionary, high performance, in-line chlorine generators for disinfection of various fresh water sources such as drinking, process and waste water. It is providing solutions to our country’s and the world’s water saving initiatives. AIS defines Ecoline as the water treatment system of the future. This environmentally friendly technology is tailored to fulfil the highest quality standards – It is simple, robust, economical and meets all the present and future demands. This technology sets the benchmark in the industry and has no comparison worldwide.

When you add chlorine to the water it reacts with ammonia NH3 and/or ammonia-derivatives present in the water (i.e. sweat, grease, urine, etc..) and it will form inorganic chloramines: NH2Cl (monochloramine), NHCl2 (dichloramine), NCl3 (trichloramine) as well as organic chloramines R-NHCl (different compounds).

The chloramines are just intermediate products. Further oxidation of inorganic chloramines (by chlorine or by UV/ozone or by other oxidants) will turn them into nitrogen gas (N2) + hydrochloric acid (HCl) + water (H2O). Further oxidation of organic chloramines will turn them into organic acids. Most of chloramines after oxidation will escape in a form of Nitrogen gas.

For example, the electrolyser/chlorine-generator system for swimming pool (e.g. either fresh water Ecoline or salt water Autochlor) is not only substitutes/replaces the chemical chlorine & chlorine dosing equipment (because it is making its own chlorine and dose it to water to the right amount), but also destroys chloramines! The Hydrochloric Acid HCl from chloramines oxidation will immediately react with Sodium Hydroxide NaOH (an intermediate byproduct in the chlorine generation reactions) and will form Water H2O and Sodium Chloride NaCl (edible salt). Therefore there is no harmful compounds left. So, oxidation of chloramines helps to bring pH down because it produces acid (HCl), and also it converts part of the chloramines back to salt (NaCl).

So, the chlorine which is generated by the process of electrolysis from salt eventually neutralizes ammonia/nitrogen derivates (i.e. chloramines) and converts them into non-toxic Nitrogen gas (which is part of the atmosphere) and itself is converted back to salt. Electrolysis basically recycles salts by temporarily activating it into chlorine form, and chlorine reacting with impurities goes back to salt.

Complete oxidation of inorganic/organic chloramines by the chlorine is not always possible in the swimming pool, because you need to have special conditions/environment for all these reactions to take place. The beauty of chlorine generator (elecrolyser) is because it provides this environment!

The conversion/oxidation of chloramines is relatively slow process which is taking few hours. One way to reduce chloramines is to achieve ratio of 10:1 of free chlorine to chloramines in order for oxidation to take place.

For example, in swimming pools, during the day time with lots of contamination from bathers (sweat, grease, urine, etc.) most of chlorine is in combined form and there is almost no free chlorine available. So, with the constant chlorine dosing it will be possible to oxidise some chloramines only during the night time when there will be more free chlorine available in the water. Night period is usually not enough to remove all chloramines in the swimming pools which maintain constant chlorine residual.

Another way to oxidise chloramines & convert them back to salt is to create shock treatment of 10 or more PPM of free chlorine in the water. This is not possible in reality in the swimming pools because such concentration is too strong for people.

Third way to oxidise chloramines & convert them back to salt is to use ozone and/or UV system.

Finally, chloramines content can be controlled mechanically by regular dilutions of pool with fresh water (if you have this water available!?).

So, there are four (4) ways to remove chloramines in the swimming pool dosed with chemical chlorine (without chlorine generator):

• EITHER remove people from the pool for few days and keep dosing and maintaining normal free chlorine residual in the water (e.g. 2 ppm), so after a while there will be more free chlorine rather than combined chlorine and ratio of free chlorine to chloramines will reach 10:1;
• OR remove people from the pool for at least one day and create shock treatment of 10+ ppm of free chlorine. People will be allowed back to pool after free chlorine residual will drop down to the acceptable level (e.g. 2 ppm).
• OR apart from routine backwashes dilute pool with 35 liters of fresh water per person per day (better system because you do not need to remove people from pool, but it requires water).
• OR install additional in-line ozone and/or UV system (better system because you do not need to remove people from pool).

Modular design allows you to retrofit your existing system and/or upgrade your chlorine generator by adding another module at later stage whenever your chlorine demand increases.

Advantages of modular design is the ability to fit into confined spaces, each model is light in weight that can be lifted by 2 – 4 people depending on the size of the module and there is no need for crane or fork-lift as well as modules can pass through narrow doors.

Sizes of modules are as follows: 110 gram/hr of 100% chlorine gas equivalent, 330 gram/hr and 1000 gram/hr. The idea is to be able to combine these modules into a larger system which can be easily assembled on-site.

Up to 5 modules can be assembled in series, for example:

• from 110 g/h modules you can assemble the following in size chlorine generators: 110 g/h, 220 g/h, 330 g/h, 440 g/h, 550 g/h;
• from 330 g/h modules you can assemble the following in size chlorine generators: 330 g/h, 660 g/h, 990 g/h, 1320 g/h, 1650 g/h;
• from 1000 g/h modules you can assemble 1000 g/h, 2000 g/h, 3000 g/h, 4000 g/h and 5000 g/h machines.

We manufacture three (3) main products lines:

1) AUTOCHLOR - for direct in-line or on-line salt water chlorination (e.g. salt water pools, ship ballast water, water features, etc...). Please review AutochlorTM brochure here: http://www.aiswater.com.au/brochures/AIS_Autochlor_Brochure.pdf (please allow few minutes to download the file)

2) CHLOROGEN - for production of Sodium Hypochlorite off-line (Hypochlorite then can be dosed to disinfect any water source; but ChlorogenTM system required constant supply of salt [or constant supply of seawater] to generate chlorine) Please review ChlorogenTM Brochure here: http://www.aiswater.com.au/brochures/AIS_Chlorogen_Brochure.pdf (please allow few minutes to download the file)

3) ECOLINE - for direct in-line or on-line fresh water chlorination (e.g. fresh water pool, cooling towers, waste water, drinking water, sewerage, etc..). EcolineTM does not require any salt. EcolineTM uses small amount of minerals naturally present in the fresh water and converts them to chlorine. Please review EcolineTM Brochure here: http://www.aiswater.com.au/brochures/AIS_Ecoline_Brochure.pdf (please allow few minutes to download the file).

All our chlorine generators (AutochlorTM, ChlorogenTM and EcolineTM) are sized in terms of Grams per Hour of pure 100% chlorine gas equivalent. Capacities under 18,000 g/h fall into our standard range of products. Anything above 18 kg/h can be purpose build specifically to the project.

THEORY OF OPERATION.

Sodium Chloride to Sodium Hypochlorite reactions:

Disassociation to Brine:

2NACL(s) + xH2O (l) ? 2NA+2CL – (aq) + H2O (l)

Current is applied to the electrolytic reactor cell and electrolysis begins

Electrolysis:

2Na+ (aq) +2CL – (aq) + 2H2O(l) ? CL2(g) +H2(g) + 2Na + (aq) = 2OH – (aq).2

During electrolysis, chlorine is formed at the anode, and hydrogen and hydroxyl ions are formed at the cathode.

Anode reaction:

2CL- ?CL2+2e-

Cathode reaction:

4H2?O + 4e- ? 2H + 4OH-

Cathode secondary reaction:

Na+ (aq) + OH- (aq) ? NAOH(aq)

This reaction is short lived as any chlorine generated at the anode is quickly consumed to form sodium hypochlorite.

Target sodium hypochlorite reaction:

Cl2 (g) + 2NAOH (aq) ? H2 (g) + 2NaOCL (aq)

Chemically we produce exactly the same chlorine as supplied from any chemical supplier. But we produce it in very low concentration which is just enough for the treatment. Therefore we do not need to handle/store/purchase concentrated and dangerous chemicals.

Standard Ecoline™ series can work with TDS as low as 500 mg/L of which 40% are the Chloride Ions [Cl-] present in the TDS, i.e. 200 mg/L of Chlorides + 300 mg/L of other minerals = Total Dissolved Solids of 500 mg/L.

Chlorides are the natural salts containing Cl component in its chemical combination, for example:

Sodium Chloride (NaCl) = ordinary salt naturally occurring in the fresh water. Calcium Chloride (CaCl) = used in swimming pools as hardness raiser and also naturally occurring in the fresh water.

Potassium Chloride (KCl) = naturally occurring mineral in the fresh water.

Apart from Chlorides, the fresh water will contain other minerals such as Sulphates and Carbonates, but for Chlorine production we are mainly interested in Chlorides.

EcolineTM will not work in distilled or demineralised water, due to absence of minerals in distilled water which can be converted to chlorine!

This standard range was originally designed for the fresh water swimming pools which do have 500+ mg/L TDS water with plenty of Chlorides. Soon after we discovered that other water sources such as sewerage, cooling water, etc.. do have similar TDS and similar mineral/Chloride content, and our standard range of EcolineTM automatically became suitable for wide range of applications

Clear, sparkling pool water is a joy to look at. A cloudy swimming pool loses its beauty and becomes uninviting for swimmers.

Cloudy swimming pool water can result from one of several factors:

* the pH is too high;
* the total alkalinity level is too high;
* the stabiliser level is too high;
* the chlorine level is too low;
* the calcium hardness level is too high;
* the level of total dissolved solids is too high;
* there are high levels of metals (discoloured pool water);
* there is a lot of pool algae growth;
* the filter needs cleaning or servicing;
* there is a large quantity of microscopic particles in the pool water.

By testing and correcting the above, the cloudy pool water problem should disappear.

Ecoline is manufactured by Australian Innovative Systems Pty Ltd(AIS). AIS is a successful Australian-owned company, with more than 35 years of experience in the research and development of state-of-the-art chlorine generators. They specialize in manufacturing chlorinators, chlorine generators and spare parts for the chlor-alkali industry.

Your first point of contact should be a place where you bought the chlorine generator.

If they are unable to solve your problem, please contact our service department at service@aiswater.com.au Please have detailed description of a problem ready, preferably with relevant photos.

Chlorine, which we use as a sanitiser in our pools, is very unstable. Sun's UV rays and high temperatures reduce chlorine's effectiveness and break it down into inactive components.

Stabiliser, or Cyanuric acid, is a compound which protects the chlorine from the negative effects of UV and heat. It not only ensures that our pool remains clean and safe for the swimmers throughout the day, but it also reduces the amount of chlorine we need to add in order to maintain these levels of disinfection.

"According to research results, pools without stabiliser lose about 90% of their total chlorine residual on a sunny day in two or three hours. Pools treated with 25 to 50 milligrams per litre of cyanuric acid, however, under the same conditions, lose only 10 to 15 percent of their total chlorine."

Ideally, the stabiliser should be maintained at a level of about 50 ppm, the acceptable limits being 40-80 ppm.