04-15: Development of an On-site Hypobromite Generator

Existing technology for biological control of cooling water systems uses costly, dangerous to handle, toxic chemicals. In order to eliminate the many problems associated with this technology, a program was started several years ago to develop a system to produce Hypobromite on-site from harmless neutral salts using the process of electrolysis. This presentation details some of the development problems encountered in obtaining almost 100% conversion of bromide ion to Hypobromite, selection of electrode materials of construction, design of the electrolysis cell, and use of polarity reversal control cell fouling/scaling. A major advantage of the developed system is that the electrolysis cell developed is at least 80% less costly to construct than existing designs using platinum plated titanium.