By Susan Neal
ITT Water & Wastewater U.S.A., 14125 South Bridge Circle, Charlotte, NC 28273

Abstract:

Ozone is a multi-functional technology, with many applications for both disinfection and oxidation.
Although ozone plays an important role in water treatment today, it is often viewed as being too
expensive or too complicated to implement. While there have been drastic improvements in the cost and
footprint of ozone systems over the past 15 to 20 years, these pre-conceived notions can hinder the
consideration of ozone for some water treatment applications.
It is typical in today’s ozone market to provide a fewer quantity of large ozone generators instead of
multiple smaller units. Previously, it has not been clear which case is more economical in terms of capital
cost, operating efficiency, and installation costs. This article investigates these three components as they
relate to ozone generator sizing and configuration in order to demonstrate that providing multiple smaller
ozone generators can be a cost-effective and compact solution for various water treatment applications.
Introduction
Over the past 10 – 15 years, as ozone generator technology and reliability have improved, ozone system
suppliers have been pushing consulting engineers to design systems with fewer, larger ozone generators.
In today’s ozone market, it is common practice to provide two (2) large ozone generators opposed to
multiple smaller units.
The public perception of this approach is that two large units are more cost effective than multiple smaller
units, due to economies of scale, footprint, installation cost, and the idea that larger ozone generators
tend to be more efficient than smaller units. However, to date, a detailed analysis comparing the two
designs has not been performed.
The objective of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of providing ozone systems with multiple, smaller
standard ozone generators, compared to providing two large units. The analysis will look at the
economics of each approach in terms of capital cost, operating efficiency, and installation costs.

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