The Gator
Well-Known Member
Speedganga thanks for your post, I understand your concerns and I have some additional information for you.@ Gator mixing ozone with carbon fitration can be dangerous: CO gaz is created and carbon can heat up till burning.
wouldn't advize so...
You make two points in your post about reactivity with carbon and ozone. You are right in the sense that there is a reaction between carbon and ozone but the results of the reaction are different from the results that you mentioned.
When carbon and ozone react there is no heat created. Ozone is highly unstable molecule that has 3 oxygen atoms, hence the O3 as the scientific representation. These three oxygen molecules are not connected very well and will easily break themselves apart and attach to other molecules. This is why it is so fantastic at removing odor, and also why carbon is so great at capturing it. When O3 and carbon meet it oxidizes the carbon and breaks itself apart, which causes two results. One is that it helps to slightly reactivate the carbon and open up micro pores, which helps to actually increase your carbon life span. Second is that once this oxidization occurs O2 is released, and it is just simple oxygen at that point, no longer a hyper reactive and unstable O3 molecule.
I have a great paper here from Berkley National Labs. They did a study on how well economy HVAC filters impregnated with activated carbon remove ozone. The filters in hydroponics are many times better and have way more carbon than these filters, but you can get a great idea of how well carbon removes ozone. http://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/1050670
Please feel free to post any other questions or concerns you may have, im always happy to help in any way.