Background

Ozone (O3) is increasingly used to purify water as an alternative to chlorination. There
are four principle applications:

• Production of potable water (drinking water)
• Sterilization of feed water for food and pharmaceutical production
• Sterilization of swimming pools
• Sterilization of waste water after treatment and before release into the water cycle

Historically, chlorination has been the preferred large scale method of sterilization of
water. However there are significant health and safety risks involved in the bulk
transport and application of chlorination systems, cost is high and there are significant
environmental implications through the release of chlorine into the water cycle. Also
chlorine can produce harmful, carcinogenic chlorohydrocarbons as a by-product....