I've been thinking lately about the growth that can appear in closed loops. Currently the best way AFAIK to kill & remove/prevent this growth is a *sol enema or a $90+ UV lamp that uses toxic mercury vapor tubes that effectively die in a year AND heats up quite a bit. ...And are probably harmful to some materials we have in our PCs...
Since UV LED's are very cheap on ebay, and
UV sterilization is normally spec'd for treating the substance once, wouldn't UV LED's work for a closed loop? We're not looking for 99.9% elimination, just preventing blooms [relative to the size of our systems
]. I know the main issue is that the common LEDs atm are 380-395nm wavelength (UV-A), while most UV lamps are in the 200's (UV-C). My argument in favor for UV-A based sterilization is thus: while UV-C is way over 1000 times more 'toxic' as UV-A, it also can't penetrate nearly as well. Using a barrage of 5mm LEDs surrounding (or inside) a slim res would definately be able to cause the microbes damage, no? They'd also be treated for a while in the res as well as over and over. Also, they usually rate the UV lamp to kill *everything*, and I don't think that algae are as resistant to UV-A as the bacteria the lamps will kill. I can't confirm this, since I can't find any info on UV treatment that actually lists the longest effective UV wavelength for kill each general type of organism. One last thing, if the handheld UV sterilizers work to any extent, it may spell hope for UV-A, since I doubt those units can produce much UV-B (both legally & theoretically), let alone UV-C. I'm betting they twist the guidelines for tanning beds to cover those units.
The other discovery I made was, albeit nothing new, a source for benificial bateria. I was just doing a quick search and
found this for $25 (scroll down to Microbe-Lift). On top of killing the growth, it also removes ammonia. While I also found a nice site showing the size of some common alga species, which are around 5 microns on average. It wouldn't be too hard to rig up a replacement element from a basic drinking water filtration system or just get a filter from mcmaster, which could filter the dead guys out when flushing the system with your *sol enema.
I believe that a combo of the two (LED's and bacteria, used in succession) would be cheaper and more effective than a normal UV lamp. I also think it'd address the negatives of the UV lamp such as heat and price. It wouldn't be nearly as "set and forget" as some people *cough*B.A.*cough* would like, but thats never a problem for us 'enthusiasts', right? Even if you used just one of the two, it'd probably work well.
I may have had more too add, but I'm in one of those :shrug:-type of modes. Also, if you want to point out any inconsistencies or whatnot, I'd prefer constructive criticism rather than getting a skewering stick up the rear
