Advantages of Trichloro Iso Cyanuric Acid over Commercially Available Liquid Chlorine for Sanitation of Swimming Pools in Nagpur Region

Th is research paper highlights on disinfection and sanitation studies on swimming pools based on several experiments carried out in different swimming pools including water parks in Nagpur and Suburbs. It also suggests practical and effective methods of swimming pool sanitation using TCCA in lieu of existing Liquid chlorine sources. Once implemented, the pool management could have savings potential up to Rs 4,000 per month per ONE Lakh lit re capacity pool


The Objectives
Nagpur the central Reg ion of India has seen continuous rise o f s wimming poo ls and wat er parks . Th e Reg ion experiences primarily three main seasons -summer, winter and monsoon with wide fluctuations in temperature. A lmost throughout the summer, start ing March; the temperatu re re mains beyond 40 degree Celsius. The Chemistry of water in the pool is an ever-changing environment that calls for constant and careful monitoring. Poo l San itation, especially, is recogn ized as a means o f cont ro lling co mmun icab le diseases. The pool operators are expected to provide safe and clean water for bathers. Water can become aggressive and destroy pools with corrosion, or it can become scaling and damage the pool with mineral deposits. The pool operator must learn about the use of chemical agents for sanitation and for control of pH, total alkalin ity and calciu m hardness ( 1 ) . The pool operators utilise Ch lorine gas and Liquid Chlo rine as the main source for sanitation. During winter season, the escaped chlorine fro m the pool surface create environmental issues. Neighbours complain about skin and eye irritations. Being an industrial problem, without much referred work done, there had been a need to find an effective solution to this environ mental prob lem. The object ive of these experiments is to carry out "comparat ive studies on chlorinating agents -Liquid Chlorine and TCCA 90 ; to be more specific in winter season in swimming pools and water parks in Nagpur reg ion" and recommend necessary dosagelevels. Free Available Chlorine should be maintained in pools at 1 to 3 ppm -preferably 2 pp m but not less than 1 ppm Sodiu m Hypochlorite solution or co mmercial liquid bleach containing 12.5% available ch lorine ( pract ically close to 10 % at the use point ) is preferred by pool operators due to it's advantages like being the lowest or next to gas cheapest available chlorine source. Sodium Hypochlorite does not require d issolution, neither leaves residues and can be used with chemical feed pumps. However it has it's disadvantages of being bulky and heavy to handle , un stabilized nature, rapid loss of strength , higher pH (10-13) thereby raising the pH of pool. Chlorine is extremely susceptible to sunlight and needs to be regularly monitored. But just as we use sunscreen to protect our skin fro m the sun, chlorine uses a sunscreen of Cyanuric acid ( 2 ) . Used this way, Cyanuric acid is also commonly called a stabilizer or conditioner. Cyanuric acid is used in outdoor pools along with the inorganic chlorine (3 ) for effective sanitations. Advantages and disadvantages of the most popular chlo rine based Cyanuric acid product called Tri -Ch loro -Iso Cyanuric acid with 90 % availab le Chlorine ( TCCA 90 ) is given below TCCA -90 : Trichloroisocyanuric Aci d: Granules or tablets 90% available ch lorine

Reccomended Water Saturation Summary in Pools
Properly balanced or saturated water prevents damage to the pool and equipment. Unsaturated water corrodes plaster walls, fixtures, p lu mbing, etc., and causes staining. Oversat urated water deposits scale or becomes cloudy. The operator needs to test and control Free Availab le Chlorine, pH, total alkalinity, TDS, & hardness to maintain balanced water.
 Free Availab le Ch lorine should be maintained at 1 to 3 ppm -preferably 2 pp m  Proper pH control (7.2 to 7.6) preferably 7.4 that ensures: (1) the proper form of carbonate alkalin ity for saturation, and (2) the proper form o f HOCI for sanitizer efficacy. Soda ash is used to raise pH. Acids are used to reduce pH & total alkalinity.
 Total A lkalinity of 90-120 pp m is preferred for pH buffering & calciu m carbonate saturation. Sodium bicarbonate is used to raise total alkalin ity.
 Calciu m hardness of 270 to 360 ppm is preferred for proper calciu m carbonate saturation and for avoiding soft-water scale found in pools. Calciu m ch loride is used to raise calciu m hardness.
 TDS below 1200 pp m is recommended for pools and water parks  Total Microbial load should not exceed 100 CFU / ml of water

Methodology
Sanitation is the process of destroying organisms referred to as pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc. Chlorination also controls algae -which are not usually harmful themselves, but may harbor pathogenic organisms. As part of overall studies plan, these set of experiments are carried out in various swimming pools and water parks in and around Nagpur in winter season to study the effectiveness. During these studies pools traditionally being operated with Liquid Chlorine are evaluated. The details of the pools under study are given in Table # 1. There are five pools coded as AB 05, PK 06, PK 07, PC 13 and CG 14 using Liquid Ch lorine, out of which PC 13 was evaluated with TCCA -90 for co mparison purposes .
The water park pools under this study were shut down for maintenance in Rainy Season and were to be opened up to public fro m 2 nd October 2010 onwards. Similarly the Public swimming pool was to be offered to public fro m 2 nd October 2010 onwards. The authors took it up as an opportunity to study efficacies of Liquid chlorine and TCCA in these pools.
Analysis (4 ) : Free Available Chlo rine ( FA C ) has to be analysed immed iately after sampling. There are 25 samples drawn fro m five pools at periodic intervals for Analysis. The nearest location of a laboratory is 40 -50 KM away, talking a couple of hours to reach. The pro ximity of analysis centre for FAC does not make it feasible to carry samples for analysis. Hence standard method used for commercial estimation of FAC using Ortho Toludiene reagent was used for estimation of FA C. During the process 10 ml pool water is taken in a test tube to which 10 ml Ortho Toludiene solution is added. The contents are shaken and sample is compared in Chloroscope for getting FAC Value.
The climat ic condition details are reproduced from the Climatological unit of India Meteorological Depart ment, Nagpur centre.
Chlorinating agent is added in the evening at 7 PM and FAC readings are taken the subsequent days at 8 AM, 12 Noon, 2 PM, 4 PM and 6 PM. Water park pools are initially evaluated with Liquid Chlorine . However the Resort pool PC 13 is tried out with TCCA. The observations for Pools are given in Table # 2 to Tab le # 6 respectively.

Stabilised Condition in the Pool
As could be seen from the above tables, the Liquid Chlorine operated pool takes 6 to 7 days to stabilize, where as the TCCA operated pool is stabilised on day 4 for the requirement of min imu m 1 pp m in pool water. The observations are graphically represented in Figures

Break Point Chlorination
Prior to operation start ups , the pools were treated with the sanitizat ion agent, the actual ppm of chlo rine added to FAC was mon itored to establish the Break point chlorination as represented in Figures # 6 to # 9

Results and Discussions
It was observed that the pool with TCCA got stabilized in day 4 itself, and hence all the Liquid Ch lorine operated pools were treated with TCCA and as could be seen from Tab les 7 to 10 , the pools got stabilized much earlier . TCCA Ch lorinating agent is added in the evening at 7 PM and FAC readings are taken the subsequent day at 8 AM, 12 Noon, 2 PM, 4 PM and 6 PM. The observations for Pools are reproduced in Table # 7 to Table # 10

Summary
The following observations are concluded fro m the experiments 1. Liquid Ch lorine operated pool AB 05 o f 300 KL capacity was stabilised with 35 Litres on the 7th day fro m start up. With a theoretical Chlorine level of about 30 ppm , the observed values in early next day was around 2.8 pp m -resulting in heavy losses of Chlorine to the atmosphere. This is one of the reasons for local neighbours complain about.
2. Similarly Liquid Ch lorine operated pool PK 06 of 400 KL capacity was stabilised with 35 Litres on the 6th day fro m start up. With a theoretical Ch lorine level of about 30 ppm , the observed values in early next day was around 2.8 ppm -resulting in heavy losses of Chlorine to the atmosphere 3. Liquid Chlorine operated pool PK 07 of 500 KL capacity was stabilised with 70 Litres on the 7th day fro m start up. With a theoretical Chlorine level of about 30 ppm , the observed values in early next day was around 2.8 pp mresulting in heavy losses of Chlorine to the atmosphere.
4. Liquid Ch lorine operated pool CG 14 o f 600 KL capacity was stabilised with 70 Litres on the 6th day fro m start up. With a theoretical Chlorine level of about 30 ppm , the observed values in early next day was around 2.8 pp mresulting in heavy losses of Chlorine to the atmosphere .
5. Whereas the TCCA operated pool PC 13 of 350 KL capacity was stabilised with 3 Kg TCCA on the 4 th day fro m start up. With a theoretical Ch lorine level of 12 pp m , the observed values in early next day was around 3 ppm 6. During the break point analysis it was seen that with Liquid ch lorine for 3 to 4 ppm added chlorine, the availab le was 1 ppm FAC, with TCCA it was less than 2 ppm added chlorine to get 1 ppm FA C. Moreover with Liquid the pool struggles to stabilise where as with TCCA it is much easier 7. After converting the Liquid operated pool to TCCA , the pool management had savings potential up to Rs 4,000per month per ONE Lakh litre capacity pool