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With this system, a very low-voltage electrical current is used to inject tiny amounts of metal—in most cases copper, but sometimes silver or synthetic compounds—into the water. The ions in the metal destroy bacteria and algae. It is common for a unit to use solar power to administer the current and so it may be called a “solar ionization” device.
Older ionization devices released a dangerous amount of copper into the water, but newer models release amounts so small that they are considered safe for even drinking. Some older pools were plumbed with copper pipe, which released trace amounts of copper into the water. This actually killed the algae but unfortunately also turned blonde hair a light shade of green. A modern metal ionization unit will not produce the green-hair effect.
An ionization unit is typically run for four to eight hours, and the ions remain in the water, killing bacteria, for a week or longer. This is far less operating time than a salt chlorine generator (see “Swimming Pool Sanitization: Salt Chlorine Generators”), which is kept running virtually all the time.
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