Remember that Ozone (O3) is a gas. Since it is not a liquid
or a powder it cannot be poured into the water. Ozone will only
disinfect the water that it touches or becomes dissolved in,
so special methods have been developed to introduce ozone to
the water and make sure it sufficiently contacts the water in
order to perform the task of purifying the water:
Bubbling
The simplest method to introduce ozone to the water is to ‘bubble’ it
through the water. This method is sufficient for small amounts
of water such as a glass, or a gallon, however this is not practical
for larger volumes of water. Imagine trying to bubble ozone into
a swimming pool. If you just put a bubbler at the bottom of the
deep end of the pool, a stream of bubbles will rise directly
up to the surface. The bubbles will only be touching a very small
portion of the water in the pool before those bubbles escape
into the air at the surface. So, the purifying power of ozone
will not be transferred very well to the water in this case.
Injection
The most common way to introduce ozone into water for large scale
water purification is through venture injection. A special
injector is used inline with flowing water. Ozone is attached
to the injector. The water flowing through the line creates
a suction on a port of the injector, and the ozone is literally
sucked into the water from the ozone generator. While this
can sometimes provide sufficient mixing of the water with the
ozone, this mixture of ozone bubbles and water is usually directed
to a mixing tank for further mixing.
Static Mixing
Static mixers are also used inline just like an injector, but
are most often used to mix the bubbles and the water together,
causing a twisting and turning vortex of the water with the
ozone bubbles and some even chop the bubbles into smaller bubbles.
Smaller bubbles will release more of their contents of gas
into the water, which increases the transfer of ozone from
the gas form into the water.
Proper mixing of ozone with the water is crucial in order to
ensure that the ozone has the opportunity to perform the purification
of the water. (See the related article Water Ozonation Secrets)
