The MIOX Advantage
Safety
One of the biggest driving forces behind MIOX systems is the need to provide safer technology and safer storage to communities throughout the world, without compromising production or quality. MIOX on-site generation is a safety solution.
Since many water treatment facilities are located adjacent to day care centers, schools, subdivisions and businesses, safety is an important consideration. The MIOX process eliminates the transportation, handling, and storage of hazardous water disinfection chemicals like chlorine gas and delivered concentrated bleach.
While chlorine gas has been used successfully for over 100 years to eliminate diseases in drinking water, it is a pressurized poisonous gas that could be released in large quantities, causing serious injury and even death upon inhalation. In fact, chlorine gas was used as a war gas during World War I and is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Moreover, it is a potential terrorist target. Although the safety record for chlorine gas is admirable considering its rate of use, tragedies continue to occur daily with accidents at water treatment facilities, train or tanker truck wrecks, and other disasters that cause additional loss of life due to the toxic nature of the chemical.
Many utilities have converted to purchasing bulk quantities of sodium hypochlorite in an effort to mitigate this hazard. In general, sodium hypochlorite is considered to be safer, but it still poses the potential for a toxic release, particularly when spilled or inadvertently combined with other chemicals. Making matters worse, exposure to a heat source can cause spontaneous ignition.
In contrast to alternative disinfection methods, the safe on-site generation of hypochlorite uses only salt, water, and power as feedstocks. Neither the salt nor the hypochlorite produced is classified as hazardous by the regulatory agencies. The concentration of the generated chlorine solution is below the Hazardous Communications Standard (HCS) safety threshold limit of 1 percent. Although hydrogen gas is evolved from the electrolytic process of on-site generation, automatic venting designs or air dilution systems safely vent this gas to the atmosphere. On-site generation has an excellent safety record, with more than 4,000 units, from a variety of manufacturers, installed worldwide.
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