The Ruthenium Problem: Why Salt Cells Are Getting More Expensive - Mondays

This week on Mondays Down Under, Lee, Shane, and Nick sit down with Lee from AIS Water for a fascinating deep dive into the world of saltwater chlorination, chlorinator cells, and the rare-earth metal quietly impacting pool owners across the globe: ruthenium.

AIS Water has spent more than three decades focused exclusively on saltwater chlorination, manufacturing everything from residential chlorinators to massive commercial systems used around the world. Lee shares insights from both the Australian and international markets while explaining why chlorinator replacement cells have become significantly more expensive in recent years.

The conversation explores how ruthenium—a critical component used in chlorinator cell coatings—has skyrocketed in price due to global supply constraints, geopolitical instability, increased demand from electronics and AI data centers, and reduced mining output. What once cost around $400 USD per ounce now costs more than $1,600 USD per ounce, creating major challenges for manufacturers and consumers alike.

The team discusses:

• Why ruthenium is essential for modern reverse-polarity chlorinator cells
• Whether alternative materials could eventually replace ruthenium
• The real reasons some chlorinator cells last 10+ years while others struggle to survive warranty periods
• How manufacturers balance quality, longevity, and rising production costs
• Why reverse-polarity technology changed the industry forever
• The differences between older mesh-style cells and modern flat-plate designs
• How coating consistency impacts chlorine production and cell lifespan
• Why AIS continues to prioritize long-term durability over lower-cost shortcuts

The discussion also ventures into water chemistry and operating conditions that dramatically affect chlorinator performance and longevity. Lee explains how low salt levels, improper testing methods, reverse-polarity frequency, phosphates, water temperature, and flow rates can all influence chlorine production and shorten cell life.

Listeners will learn:

• Why running low salt levels can reduce cell life by thousands of hours
• The difference between chloride testing and conductivity-based salt readings
• Why TDS and actual salt levels are not the same thing
• How cold water impacts chlorine generation
• Best practices for winter chlorinator operation
• Why some chlorinators produce exactly what their labels claim while others may not
• The importance of understanding chlorinator output ratings and testing standards

The episode also touches on emerging wellness trends, including cold plunges and hot-cold therapy pools, and the unique challenges these environments create for saltwater chlorination systems.

Whether you're a service technician, retailer, builder, or simply someone who wants to better understand what is happening inside a saltwater chlorinator, this episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the science, engineering, and economics driving one of the most important pieces of equipment in modern swimming pools.

Got questions about saltwater chlorination, chlorinator cells, phosphates, magnesium chloride, or pool chemistry? Let us know and we may bring Lee back for a future episode.

Talking Pools Podcast – Mondays Down Under
Because sometimes the most important thing in your pool isn't what you can see—it's what is happening on a microscopic layer of ruthenium-coated titanium.

#SwimmingPools #PoolService #SaltWaterPools #PoolIndustry #PoolChemistry #TalkingPoolsPodcast #AISWater #PoolProfessionals

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, good whatever time of the day it is. It is time for Mondays Down Under on the Talking Pools podcast. It's great to have you with us. My name's Lee. I'm the pool shock coach. And I am here with my two esteemed colleagues. I have Shane in Auckland, New Zealand. Hey Shane, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Very good, Lee. Thank you for asking. Hope you are as well.

SPEAKER_05 0:24

I am. It's starting to get a bit chilly, but I can I can withstand with my lovely little electric blanket on my back. And my Ug boots. And my Ug boots. But in much warmer weather, well, actually wet but warm, is Nick in Brisbane. Hey Nick, how are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah, goodly. How are you?

SPEAKER_05 0:44

Good. Those pools all nicely diluting up there for you.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Yes. I now that um I've got my own pool, no the rain, what's this gonna cost me? I'm seeing the other side of it now. So but it's what it is.

SPEAKER_05 0:59

And today we are joined by uh a very special guest, and that is Lee from AIS, also in Brisbane. Hey Lee, how are you? This is gonna be confusing, so I apologize in advance.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

It could be I'm hearing my name back, but yes. Oh, we're doing doing very well, thank you, Lee. And uh good to see you, Nick and Shane. Thanks for having us today.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Thank you. Thanks for coming in.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

So, Lee, tell us a bit about yourself and your role at AIS. And actually, for our listeners that aren't aware of AIS, what AIS, I what AIS?

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Sure, absolutely. So uh AIS Water is is a proud Australian-based manufacturer. We've been around for uh probably coming up close to 35 years. We are absolutely laser focused in the saltwater chloration space. It's the only thing we do, the only thing we focus on. We do residential products, we do large. When I say large, I'm talking like 3,000 grams per hour commercial products. We do very low salt, we do seawater. It is our our absolute uh core. It's the only thing we do, saltwater chloration. And it's great to be doing it here in Brisbane, Australia, as you say though, albeit a little bit wet. For me, I've been around the pool industry what seems like whatever, but probably 25 years. I've done some time in retail, I've done some time with franchise retail, I've done some time in other parts of the world with uh some of the larger manufacturers, and now I'm uh chief of sales and marketing with AIS. So we're a we're a small family-run business uh taking on the world. And on any given day, I could be talking to somebody in the Middle East, Europe. I think uh this week I'm working on a pool for dolphins, so there's plenty of diversity in what we do.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

Wow, fantastic. Because you are in the US market, like you've been there for a little while.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah, so we we we have brought some of our commercial grade products, and not our residential grade products, to that US standard, that NSF and UL standard, which is very, very difficult to get. Obviously, the US market is not renowned for being a salt water market. Some states are, not so much others, but certainly in the context of breaking into a market where there's 10 million pools or 8 million pools, I think is the number in the US market, it it represents a great opportunity for us. But certainly not the not the easiest one, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_05 3:30

Yeah, I see over socials all the time that they're yeah, definitely not a a push towards salt as we would see in the Australian market. Like I think New Zealand, Australia, probably 95% of our market is is salt or mineral chlorination.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Absolutely, Leah. I think uh in the last year we brought on a new customer in the Middle East. They are traditionally, I'm going to say, 99% cal hypermarket. This particular uh built business saw salt, saw something, didn't quite understand it. And I would have used something similar to what you just said. You know, here in Australia we've been using salt water coronation for 40 plus years, maybe even even longer. And 99% of pools are on salt. And they they stand there and go, we do not understand this, but it's it's it's pretty much a fact. You know, nine out of ten pools, if not nine and a half out of ten, are salt added in one way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

Yes. And I think probably for the from what I understand from the US market, is that well, it's like anything, I suppose. If you don't understand something, if you don't, yes, there is issues with high like the high pH and little things that you need to be aware of with any system, with any form of chlorination, there's always little idiosyncrasies that you need to be aware of of how it affects the pool water balance. And so once you're educated and you understand that, I suppose for us it's just like we've been born into it, like so we've never known any different. And so therefore it's easy for us to comprehend. And we actually can't comprehend why the rest of the world isn't coming along for the ride.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

I I I feel that pain every day. I think I I answered a question with one of my Middle Eastern customers recently. They asked me, so Lee, we used to put in uh one kilo of cal hypo. Do I need to put in one kilo of salt at the same ratio? And when I tried to explain to explain to them that salt does not get consumed with the process, there were terms like black magic. You know, this how can that how can that be? It's black magic. It does not, it can't be real. But it's it's just new to them in that sense. Probably Lee, I think, you know, what we're here today to talk about, and it's one of the other arms of AIS water, is we've been making our own anodes. So the the cell plates, um, the ruthenium-coated titanium, that is where all the magic of salt water chlorination happens. So we've been doing that for 25 years. For the last 22 of those, we've been doing it just for ourselves. But in the last three years, we've started to expand out and sell our anodate to other manufacturers around the world. It's it's been a really interesting journey for us, and we now have customers in six different countries around the world and more to come in time.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

Fantastic. Great to see a fantastic family business, Australian-made products, Australian-owned, family-owned company taking on the world. It's awesome. But yes, Ruthenium in particular, and the cost as we all sort of roll our eyes, the ever-increasing cost of salt water chlorination replacement cells has really affected a lot of the service and retailers in our market. And so that I suppose is what drove our interest and particularly Nick to bring you on. So yeah, thank you for thank you for joining us. So, what's going on in the ruthenium market? Can you tell us why are we all paying these high prices for these chlorinating cells now?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

It's uh it really boils down to that that raw material, which is, you know, probably classified in that rare earth mineral, and perhaps even just with the word rare, rare earth, the fact that it's rare, and in some ways uh escalate the price. But for um for a long time, I think the the ruthenium have been very, very stubborn. And uh since January last year, so we're not talking January 2026, but January 2025, we've started to see a gradual and consistent increase. And in some ways, I would put it down to probably four different factors. We had a factor of supply, so we've got one part of the world where that rhythmia normally comes from being sanctioned. So, you know, a big part of the supply historically has come out of Russia when that's no longer available. Got that sense of rare earth being rare and therefore quite the I guess the topic of the day, you know, whether it's gold or silver, this falls into that rare earth, and there are people that have been trading it, like gold and silver. We've certainly seen the advent of AI, and you might think to yourself, why AI? But that ruthenium is being used in solid-state hard drives. So with more and more data centers, you've got more and more demand for the products. And all of those things put together uh have sort of created, I guess you could call it the perfect storm. You've got lower supply, higher demand market that is very much interested in rare earths, and as a result, it's continued to escalate. And there's no doubt the geopolitical uh let's call it the framework of the last six months has not helped. We saw some, you know, some really interesting and large bumps as it came down to this ongoing escalation in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_05 9:01

So this might be a technical question, or you might laugh at it. But if we can't make cells out of ruthenium, can we make oh well we can make it out of ruthenium? It's available, it's just more expensive. Is there a cheaper option?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Can we switch it out? But believe believe me, Lee Mick and Shay, we are actively looking for that and had been for quite some time. But I think that the common held view at the moment is ruthenium is the the piece of the puzzle. Obviously, we can do a plate that is not ruthenium-coated if we don't want to be able to reverse that cell. Obviously, it's important that we've got both the anode and the cathode going on, but if we want that longevity, ruthenium is the is the core at the moment. And I know of at least three other companies around the world that are looking at different materials, whether they have been successful in small scale, been able to bring chlorine generation to the fore, but then also the longevity is the piece of the puzzle. I don't think anybody has yet known.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

So ruthenium is only used in reverse polarity cell plates.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Well, not so much in only in reverse, but if I'm not if I'm not reversing, then I can use a raw titanium. So uncoated, which obviously takes a lot of cost out of that product.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Hence why reverse polarity cells cost a lot more than single polarity cells. Or not non-reverse polarity cells, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

And of course there's there is a there is a sense. Do we need to revert back to the old world of non-reversing um chlorinators and put the onus of regular cleaning on the operator or on the homeowner? And I don't think anybody really wants to go back there. But if the costs continue to escalate, then maybe that's that is an option or some say.

SPEAKER_05 10:48

I still remember having a conversation with a customer in our store, and it would have been probably 20 years ago now, and oh almost 20 years ago, and they said to me when I asked them if they had a reverse polarity chlorinator, and they said, What's that? And I said, Well, you either have to clean the cell or you don't have to clean the cell. And they looked at me and they said, You mean my pool builder could have sold me a cell I didn't have to clean? And I said, Yeah, it would have cost you more. And he just he said, I wouldn't have cared. I just would have liked to have had the choice to buy, like to spend that extra money and had something I don't have to clean.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

This is a this is a scenario I come across every day to, you know, both in the residential space but also in commercial space, where there are products out there that are that are not reversing anymore. And they are doing that to keep their costs down. And it puts the onus on the operator. And if the operator is not aware of that, it puts a huge onus in terms of time, safety, how they can actually clean the cell. All of those things, if the if the the person that's making the purchase is not aware of those things and the operator's not aware, it just pushes the burden somewhere. And uh, I guess as a business, even though we've been we've been wrestling, we cost that a four times what they were one year ago. So for perspective for the listeners, one year ago, one ounce of rithenium used to cost us around 400 US dollars per hour. Today it's $1,600 per hour. And it's been as high as $1,750. So four four times the cost. So And is uh still increasing at the moment? Yeah, it it's actually been it's softened off in the last month's shape. So hit a peak of $175 just around the time that all of the mess was going on in the Middle East. And it's just softened a little bit, and for the last almost the last 30 days, and I'm perhaps crossing my fingers here, not to jinx this, but for the last month it's been relatively stable, but still extraordinarily high. 1600 versus 400. It's a four-fold increase in that time flow. So we think we seem to think from our perspective, because of those factors I mentioned earlier, that perfect storm, if one changes, we might see a little more softening. But to get it back to 400, all four of those things will need to change. And you know, I I wish I had a crystal ball, but I can't look in my into my future and go, well, all four of those things fall in the right direction at the one time. I think it's highly unlikely. So this this is the new norm for us at the moment.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

Bloody technology. Tell you what, ruthenium in AI, like we lost lithium to batteries.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Correct.

SPEAKER_05 13:41

And and and now we're competing with AI for ruthenium. So is what else is ruthenium used in or for?

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Do you know? So so so from what we see, you know, it's it's in a lot of electronics. So again, when we talk about that, that the the Middle East, after all of those drones were being sent out and then being lost in that war, they need to be replaced. It's it's not replaceable, it's not something that's coming back into cycles. So that saw some of that uplift. But it is definitely in a solid state hard drive, is one of the areas that it's being consumed. And I think maybe I didn't touch on it before, but certainly some of the the process to actually draw the rithenium out. So it's a byproduct of nickel mining, is one of the things. Nickel has been quite soft in terms of its pricing, so not as much nickel mining, therefore not as much bypro all of those things combined have just put that that pressure on. And I don't think pool industry per se is using more than they ever have. But it's just a finite amount. And if I could buy it from Russia, we could, but of course, it comes with a sanction and you know, severe penalties. So that reduction in the availability of that from that market very, very difficult.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

I've just built it up actually, and um yeah, it's used in advanced extreme ultraviolet and alloys and jewellery. So women stop spending so much money on jewelry, and then it's it could be a little bit more for the pool industry.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So so certainly from a from a availability perspective, we've not had any concerns or issues in the availability of the product. It's just the the sheer impost of both both cash and time and investment, and you know, the pricing of the product at the at the end for the consumer has had to flex and has had to flex extraordinarily quickly. It's you know, when when we broke before Christmas in 2025, it was $910. And we had some relative comfort that it had been stable for a couple of months, and on January 6th it was $1,425. If only I'd bought some ruthenium before I broke on.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Should have asked for it for Christmas from Santa.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, Nick. It's uh you know, hindsight's a one a wonderful thing. Of course, the you know, when the when the product that you're using is the core of your business, and for us it's it is our business, we don't have anywhere else to hide that cost, uh, it's meant that we've absolutely had to increase our cost very, very quickly, and just like any anybody would, there's been some reaction to that. That's it's about explaining it. I know I've spent uh time with with many of our retail partners helping helping them understand that impost, but also our stance, which has been we we are not going down a path of reducing the quality of our product to meet a price for the time being. It's been very clear mandate of our product we've held. Our business has been successful on a quality product that lasts a long time. You know, Nick, I know that you're a supporter of our product in in and around your business, so you've got that real life understanding of what that means practically. Lee Shane, I'm not sure how much you've seen there. Our product, I know we sell it a bit into New Zealand, but we we just won't we we've made that call to stay with our with our higher quality and not do what I've seen, which is other people that have reduced the quality to keep their price down, and and everybody will make their own decision in that space.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

I and I have to say, like we were talking before we came on, and I always advocate for it on on our show, is my cells are AIS, so my chlorinator is an AIS chlorinator, and I just replaced my cells after about nearly 12 years. So I have a mineral chlorinator or a mineral claw as it's called, has two cells on it, and being fantastic, hasn't skipped a beat, and I had no hesitation, even with the 12-year-old unit, to replace the cells on it.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

It's awesome here. I'll make sure that that finds its way back to other people in our in our business. But but that's the core of it. Ultimately, we've we've been selling our anode, which you know is a very unexciting product, and you know, people that are listening might be able to see what I'm holding up, but it's a little piece of grey metal and it's titanium, it's very light in its gray. It's as about as exciting as you could wish for. The first grade they bought a couple of years ago was rated at 10,000 hours, and then as the price started to rise, they went, Maybe we'll take the 7,500 hours, and the last time it was, I've only got this budget. How much can you give me? So they've continued to downgrade their products, maybe not in terms of output, but in terms of longevity, life warranty. And it's their call with their customer base on how they manage. It's tricky though. Four, again, I come back to four times the cost base.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

The part of the product that represents more than 50% of the cost.

SPEAKER_05 19:02

And I I think all of us have seen it. Like, I know Nick's been in the industry for 20 odd years, and Shane, you're over it well over a decade. I'm at 28 years. And I've seen the drop in the quality of the salt cells that originally came out. And here I'm talking, I'm not talking about AIS products, of course, I'm talking about other brands, where initially you could go, yes, you can get eight years out of a chlorinating cell. Then it became if you get five years, you're lucky. Now it's like three years, you're lucky if it sees out your warranty with some manufacturers. And pure obviously that's a reflection in the decrease in the quality of the coatings or the materials that they're using. They're not getting that longevity out of it. And I know a lot of people out there would say, but that means I make more money because I'm selling more products. Well, for me, it comes down to quality of product. We've seen the the drop in the quality of product uh of other manufacturers' products over the years. And that's all we can put it down to is the fact that they're competing price against quality and and some somewhere something's got to give. We've either got to pay more or we get less. Yeah. Like it's the same shrinkage in the supermarket is real. Like we all know chocolate bars have shrunk in size.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

They they certainly have.

SPEAKER_05 20:26

So and the pool industry is no different. But most of us are interested in quality. Most of us don't want to deal with warranty issues. Most of us like we'd like to see the uh us sell a quality product to our customers and then be happy with that product, not buying it again in another three or four years and whinging to me that I've sold them a an inferior brand.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

And then you've got the unforeseen costs hardly of servicing that. So often, you know, I've I've got an ongoing discussion with somebody they're still perplexed by the price increase. And we're talking, it's a significant increase. And they're they're going, but I can get a competitor product for 25%. But they also openly acknowledge that in their history their call-outs with the competitor product have been four times as much as with the so it's it it is it is tricky times and we've we've made our uh our play to stay on that higher road, but we are also actively working from an RD perspective to see how we can reduce the cost, how we can use less material, how we can reinvent electrolysis, so to speak, and find a better way. If we can if we can do that, then that's good for for our business, it's good for the industry, and it would see a lot more lot more um pools converted from the, I guess we'll call them the the traditional methods that had their own challenges. So that's that's certainly our drive. What we found though is, and this has been part of our success in winning customers from other markets, is it's about consistency. So it's about the consistency of the material on both sides of the plates. And we've seen and been successful in winning business where I think we all understand that material is rated in notional hours of life. So how many hours should life last under normal circumstances? When you get one side of the plate that is as advertised, so we'll call it 10,000 hours, but the other side is very poor quality and might only last 2,000. That weak point is the whole weak point of the seller. And that has been, I guess, something that we've seen in terms of some of the other methods of manufacturing. They're faster, they're quicker, but they don't give you that same quality/slash longevity.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Or the output. The output as well. I noticed that with all a lot of different brands that you put an AIS chlorinator on and it does what it says. Other ones, I'm not too sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Interesting, interesting.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

It makes you wonder like heat pumps have COPs. Yeah. So uh chlorinators, obviously, we we call them a gram per hour. So it yeah, the efficiencies, yeah, how do you gauge it, I suppose?

SPEAKER_02 23:30

We would love to see a a more regulated standards, particularly here in in the Australian market. Uh you you mentioned before about the US market, Lee. So when we when we achieve NSF and UL certification, hood claims are absolutely measured and regulated and have to be within, I think the the percentage is 5% of the nominated claim. So if we are saying it's uh 50 grams of chlorination, then I've got five grams either side that I can be, but I can't be at 30 grams if I'm 50. So we we've been advocating very strongly for a standard, a bit like um heat pumps and COefficient, or what happened seven or eight years ago with variable speed pumps. Everybody had their own testing regime, so somebody was five and then it was six, and then it was eight, nine, and ten, and now everybody's standardized. So we would love to see that happen in the chloration space because it would definitely level the playing field.

SPEAKER_05 24:31

So the let's say 25 grams per hour, because that's a very common size unit. 25 grams per hour, is that rated at a particular salt level? And so if that salt level changes, goes up or down, does that output, does that affect the output?

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Absolutely it doesn't. Yeah. So and I'll just talk, I'll talk to our residential product. So our reg our residential products we we proudly uh stand by if it says 25 on the box, you're getting 25 grams with the combination pure chlorine output. There are some people out there that will use a cal hypo equivalent at 60%. So it says 25 on the box, but in reality it's only 15 or 16 grams. So there's some there's a little bit of buyer beware in in amongst all of that. So we we're very clear that 25 grams, but for us, it's 5,000 parts per million salt level, 27 degrees, and flow rate of a minimum 150 litres per minute. So those factors combined is where we will say 25 grams of corn. You reduce the salt level to 3,500, you will only be at plucking this number from my head, you'll probably only be at 19 grams. Inversely, if you've got a low salt product that's designed to work at 1,200 parts salt, and you move it from 1200 to 2000, you will get 35% more output from that product. So definitely that interrelationship between salt and output, maybe not in old transformer-based products, but in switch mode products, is is very real. And we see it often, we will um we will quote a commercial project. It's uh we'll call it 1200 parts per million, it might be a thousand gram machine, but you move it just that little bit up to two thousand, where you still can't taste the salt in the water, and you're getting thirteen hundred and fifty grams, or you could an 800 gram machine to deliver you this the thousand that you need.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

So you can you can be clever in the way in which you get the desired and so you touched on something interesting there, which was flow rate. So does that come down to contact time?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

To a degree, Lee. What what we what we really want to see happen is that chlorine to be pushed back to the body of water. So if it's stalling in the pipe work, you know, I had one uh commercial project just recently where flow rates, we say at least a minimum of 150 liters a minute, we could see that it we were probably half of that, and just by fixing that flow rate, we've resolved what was a perception of under chlorination. That pool really could do with flow rate. When it comes to the lower salt products, you definitely need more contact, you need that turnover to get more contact time in that um to deliver you that out. So if we're saying 1100 grams, we we need that much higher flow rate.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

So if the water is going though through too fast and therefore not getting that contact time on the actual salt cells?

SPEAKER_02 27:43

No. So we can speed it up and slow it down. What we're looking for is that minimum to make sure it's getting back to the pool. But if we are going faster, we're still only going to generate the nominated hour per hour. You know, that is that's perhaps the one weakness of saltwater chlorination over the other methods. I can only put in so much per minute. Talking earlier about, you know, 100 grams an hour is 1.66 grams per minute. And if we're in a small body of water, then we needed big chlorinator to get that back quickly. I can only do it by increments of one minute with chlorin saltwater chlorination, but I can do it very differently with granular olive. So it's the one it's the one weakness in in the bigger space at least, anyway.

SPEAKER_05 28:27

So the lower speed is not necessarily making well, it's not making less chlorine, it's just not moving it around as fast.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:36

Right. So still making the same amount, just the circulation is yeah, not quite hitting the mark.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah. So longer, longer quarter contact time with the cell plate.

SPEAKER_05 28:46

You were talking before about the ruthenium coating, and this led to something that Shane raised before. Shane, about the cell designs?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, there was a job that I went to earlier this week and a very, very old school swimming pool with a very old school cell chlorinator, but the cell was the mesh style, and this is why an older style uh chlorinator. You don't tend to see too many mesh cells on the market anymore. So I was curious, I mean, one, why isn't the mesh used anymore, or would that be a better product or a better design to actually use going forward compared to the solid plate?

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah, so it really comes down to consistency of coding shane from from our perspective. When I so, and again, maybe for the listeners just to help understand, the ruthenium is a is a metal, and we are dispersing that metal into in simple terms of paint, but for us we use a particular application method called sole gel application. So we we're using chemicals to suspend that metal in the paint. So for us, and and just think about this in the terms of if you were painting a wall at home or the kitchen or the bathroom, if I go and buy my my paint from one of the big hardware stores and put in the red coloration into the white paint to make pink for my daughter's uh bedroom, and I don't mix that paint really well, then I end up with a very light pink paint at the start, and I end up with a very dark pink paint at the other end. So for us, getting that metal dispersed through the paint solution is super, super important. So when we lay it down on a solid surface, we can get very good even dispersion, but with the mesh product, it's very hard to get into all those cracks and crevices. So you end up with perhaps more contact. Um you don't end up with the rithenium, which is the key here, dispersed through all those interlocking mesh panels. So it just bec it's just become harder to manufacture. You don't have as as much quality control over the dispersion of the paint and the rithenium across that surface. And just like many things, practicality makes it easier for us to paint both sides of a flat surface than it is to, you know, if you imagine painting uh stucco at home versus painting bricks takes you four or five times as long to get the paint into all those cracks and crevices. So that's really what's driven it. We used to make it once upon a time, and it just practically does not make sense. But cost of ruthenium at four times the amount, it could see it it come back into not so much fashion, but into the economics of the situation. Uh but the quality, as I understand it, as I've seen reports around it, is just not just not quite there. Um and you know, for us, quality is is the key part of what we did.

SPEAKER_05 31:49

Because the good thing was with the mesh plates is we didn't get those calcium flakes back into the pool like we do with the the solid plates, because obviously it's much much easier for those flakes to come off when they reverse polarity.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Interestingly, when you look at a cell plate under a microscope, it's there's lots of peeps and ballets. I know when I when I train people, I sort of show a side view of what a anode plate looks like. And you know, to to the naked eye, when I look at my anode plates, it feels very smooth. Yeah, it's a very homogeneous plate. It's almost ceramic, feels like a dinner plate. I've seen a plate that come from other markets that look like bitumen and feel like bitumen. They've got a very um hard, non-homogeneous coating. So all of those things come into play. But for us, it looks smooth, but when you look under a microscope, lots of pizza dallies, and that's obviously where the calcium can catch, that can catch those values. Um and perhaps with the mesh plate, I think mesh was around long before I was in the pool industry, so I don't have a real practical experience with it. I see the odd one like Shane has out in the real world, something that's lasted for a hundred years, but the consistency is the key here. And and speed of application, and making sure that you get that good solid homogenous baseline so you get good chlorine output from the least amount of paint.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Makes a lot of sense, actually. One of the biggest differences I see between your plate and some of the others is the thickness. Is there why is why are yours that little bit thicker?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

So that really comes down to the substrate, Nick. So again, as a as a business and perhaps, you know, foundationally quite an Australian thing, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We've we've always used one millimeter thick titanium. The cost of the titanium relative to the cost of the paint is relatively insignificant. So if I can have a chunkier, media substrate, bear in mind we're putting electricity into this piece of metal, right? So in very simple terms, it practically makes sense that I've got more area to disperse that electrical current through, so therefore my um not driving it as hard. So we we've continued with the one millimeter, and we've had requests for thinner 0.6, it's actually harder to work with because it's a little a little less stable, a little more wavy. The process we use to paint it, uh, we're trying to paint both sides at one time. So if you don't have a super flat sheet, it becomes a challenge. But all in all in all, when you consider that this is in probably one of the harshest, harshest environments that you could ask for. Salt, water, UV, high water flow, high electrical current. And if we are making it from the from the best that we possibly can in terms of the the grade of titanium and the thickness, it just adds to that longevity. And I think we've all seen super thin cell plate that's been eaten through, or it's been eaten at the edges, because there's just not enough meat on the fence.

SPEAKER_05 35:06

That sounds like a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah, yeah, perhaps it's it's a little Australian way of putting it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Just don't know about that. Sorry, sorry. So just just just curious, just as you were talking about that, like um that's something that I've I'm sure everybody's noticed in the past. When one plate goes, pretty much it will stop producing chlorine. But technically, would the other plates still be okay?

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah, so you start to get a bit of a domino effect in this in this case, Shane. So obviously we we've got an anode and a cathode, and the production of chlorine is happening between those two plates. So that's between our positive and our and our negative. And this, you know, this comes down to some other things that we're looking at at the moment is on the the very outside plates of a do they need to be coated? Because they are not active. They are not producing chlorine, they're not adding to the output. Yet at the moment, they are consuming some very expensive paint for very little output. So there are products out there that that use naked or no rheteme on those outside plates for exactly that reason. They're not active. So if I've got my anode and my cathode together, obviously my production is happening in between those two things. But if one of those plates starts to give way, therefore I've got no production. But I'm also starting to get some stray, let's call it some stray current. So we we've probably all seen bucking that can happen between plates. And those, I guess those compounding factors really start to come to play. We lose amperage on one side, therefore I start to lose production. The other blades need to work harder, therefore, they give way a little bit quicker as well. So it's sort of, you know, once it starts to fall away, it can go very quickly. But again, Shane, I've seen that, you know, so again, our plate is made in a particular way. Like I mentioned before, we use a sole gel paint technology. There are others in the world that use maybe um something akin to uh spray painting. I've seen others that still use a manual painting process. So they're all a little bit different. Uh there's one called I think it's Magnetron sputtering deep deposition. I don't even profess to know what that's about, but they can make their plate in you know much faster space, but it looks very different to ours. So everybody's plate operates just that little bit, little bit different. Electrochemically, they're all a little bit different. So some will produce a little bit more chlorine under the same condition, some will produce a little bit less, others will last a little bit longer. What we see, and we tested you know, probably 20 or 30 different competitor plates, they all have a different profile in which they expire. So for our plate, it goes along very consistently at the correct at the designed amperage for a long time and then gives away very quickly. Others will fall away slowly over a period of time. So they might give you 25 grams of chlorination at the day one. Year two, they're at 20, still operating okay, but not not giving you what they're designed to. On year the end of year two, they're giving you 15. At the end of year three, they're giving you 10. Ours gives you 25 at a very consistent rate, but then falls away at the end of its life. So every plate's just a little bit different in terms of how it how it reacts. And that also ties in with what the power supply is doing. So I know we spoke about this a little bit earlier, different power supplies delivering different instructions to the plate, so to speak. And as a result, that can have an impact on how long that that cell ultimately lasts.

SPEAKER_05 38:58

Actually, that leads into the conversation that we did have before we started uh recording. And this conversation, like, I know you two guys are the same. Like, I'm enthralled. I've never learned so much about salt cells, so I really appreciate your time, Lee, and I know our listeners will too. The big conversation is all around trying to make these cells last longer. And I often talk about not stressing the cell out by asking it to run on the smell of an oily rag or a low salt level. And we we spoke about salt testing and all of that sort of thing, which we've done on the podcast before. So you were explaining that obviously the salt water chlorinator or the salt cell is supposed to run or produce so many grams per hour at a particular salt level. So explain to our listeners what happens when that salt level is lower. So instead of running at the normal 5,000 parts per million that it's supposed to be run at, it's run at sort of 3,000 parts per million. What happens to that cell?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Absolutely, Lee. So so maybe just one step back. So every cell and power supply should be perfectly matched. So that they're designed to give you an optimum output. Hopefully, what it states on the box. So if it says it's 25 grand on the box, that's what it should be giving you. And from a warranty or longevity perspective, it should be giving you a certain amount of hours life. And usually that would be tied into the warranty. And I think it's important that everybody appreciates that a cell is the consumable part. It's the print ink in your printer, it's the tires on your car, it is consumable. And unfortunately, I don't necessarily know that that message has always made it to the the pool owner or the end user. So on that basis, the two things matched perfectly, should give you the right output and a certain amount of life. For us, you know, I think the industry generally talks to cell plate having a certain number of hours life under a certain set of conditions. What we know is that if you change some of those conditions, and that can be around temperature, it can be around pH, but the two biggest ones are the salt level, how frequently we we reverse the polarity of that salt. So how frequently do we turn that little piece of titanium plate that's taking positive energy and we ask it to take negative energy? It's a very stressful piece of the process. We know that both of those things, when you change those, um, I'll say negatively, so in this case, reducing the salt from 5,000 to 3,000, you will take hours of life off of that cell. Similarly, if you change the reverse polarity sequence. And this one's a little more tricky because if I change it from four hours that it's set to, and I move it to eight hours, so I'm not reversing it as much, I will increase the cell. Inversely, if I move it from four hours to two hours, I will decrease it. And both of those are around that 30% of the rated life. So if I've got a cell and it's rated to last under normal conditions at 15,000 hours, and I change my reverse polarity sequence from four hours where it was set by the manufacturer to two, and I instead of running it at 5,000 parts, I run it at 3,500 parts. I might only get 5,000 hours like that cell. I'm effectively reducing the life span of that cell because of the operating conditions. But they're the two biggest factors. There's there's a few others, including phosphates, and perhaps that's a topic for another another day because it's an it's a really interesting one.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

It is an interesting one. I found I found when we were talking commercial in the commercial space and phosphates and how that can affect the cell. Yeah, very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Yeah. So, you know, again, because this is our our whole business, we we need to delve that little bit deeper into all of those aspects of salt water chloration, not just chlorine production piece, getting the most out of the product at the other side. And so phosphates is is one of those that can take life off the cell very quickly. You can absolutely bring a cell to end of life in half the time that it normally would. But it's it's much harder to identify than being able to test the difference between 5,000 salt and 3,500, or to test the difference between four hours reversing and eight hours. And they're the sorts of testing we we regularly do on our plate to ensure that we we've got that longevity there.

SPEAKER_05 43:47

Very interesting. We touched before on something that is of real interest, obviously, in the Australian wellness market. The wellness market is really taking off with hot plunge, cold plunge, saunas. All of that sort of thing. But in particular the cold plunge, because we actually know so little about it from a water balance perspective, from a sanitization and microbiological activity perspective. But also then comes into the space of cold water and how the US market, some of the US market are not inclined to go down the saltwater chlorinator route because they perceive that they don't work in cold water. So can you talk about that, please?

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah, it's defin definitely a very interesting piece of the puzzle. And you know, you talk about the health, hot, cold spa wellness. You know, I might I might consider jumping into a four-degree pool as torture, perhaps. It doesn't sound healthy or fun to me, Lee. Um I don't know. I could think of better things to be doing. But yes, we we we've seen a huge rise in that space. And typically they are side by side, right? So you've got the sauna next to the hot, next to the cold. We we've had some good success in that space. But we do, and we do so because we we make some larger chlorinase that gives us the ability to get a very a large amount of chlorine into the water in a very short period of time at very low salinity level. But what we do preface that with is the life of the cell is going to be greatly reduced. Because you don't have that that underlying conductivity and the the cell is working much harder to generate that chlorine, we don't tend to see the normal life of that cell in the cold. Perhaps not so much in the hot, but typically the hot is dealing with other issues like you know, super high TDS, uh super high phosphates, and you know, lots of lots of bait load and what we would consider to be swimmer introduced nasties. Water should be turned over very quickly to keep it nice and safe. So it is a it is a challenge. We tend to use one of our analog products in that space that's not designed to shut down at those lower temperatures. So it will it will throw up blurred, but it won't stop working. I think the benefit in the colder environments, though, Lee, is that we don't have the heat to be able to sort of foster the very quick growth of some of those nasties in the water. We we all know that cold water, typical backyard pool, is not going to get algae in the middle of winter. As soon as we get that warm water, she will turn very quickly. So we don't have quite the same harsh environments, but definitely the operation of the product is is greatly, greatly impacted. We would see a product that might operate for four or five years in a normal backyard pool environment, only lasts for 12 to 18 months under those harsh conditions. But if the if the operator is aware of that No issues. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:51

So what's your recommendations in the Australian market? Like we're heading into winter now. For those of us who aren't lovely lucky enough to live in sunny Brisbane or in the Queensland state? Where we are suffering cold weather and colder temperatures, the colder weather, like the colder water that our chlorinators are having to deal with, what is the best way to actually deal with that? Are we better to run it at a lower output but longer hours, shorter hours, higher output? What's what's the go?

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Very, very interesting question, Lee. I put this into one of my mythbuster categories. Um I get this question a lot. Lee, I'll just we'll we'll order a bigger chlorinator or we'll run it for less time. We'll come back to that. The mention I mentioned before about the reversing of the polarity sequence. So whether it's operating at 10% or 100%, the reversing of the polarity has the most amount of stress on my plate. It's one of the things that is is really impacting the overall life of the product. Yes, there is some difference between 10% and 100%, but it is definitely not linear. It's not like when I'm at 100% and at 10%, I'm going to get 90% more life, which is where the myth is. I'll run it at 10%, I'll get 90% more life. No. The reversing, if it's still going through that reverse cycle, that's where the stress is on the plate. So I'd much prefer to see you run it at a higher output, a lower amount of time to get the most life out of the cell platform. But ultimately in winter, and you know, Nick, you you'd know this very well being out there poolside managing, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of pools, you don't have the same burden, you don't have the same batherload, you don't have the same challenges of a pool through winter. So you can get away with lett lower hours and potentially the key is more to do with filtration than it is to do with cloud. That would be my experience anyway.

SPEAKER_05 48:53

Does it help if you increase the salt level through winter when the conductivity is lower because of water temperature? Um and uh add an extra bag or two of salt.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Depends on the type of chlorinator you have. If you've got a chlorinator that can withstand the higher voltages, the higher amperatures from the higher salt level, then sure, if you're using a transformer-based product, you you're gonna run into trouble at some stage down the track. And again, we see this regularly. Uh a pool chlorinator is on overload. Why is it on overload? And when you finally do a true chloride test on the pool and you understand the true level of salt, you know, it may as well be the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:39

And so we we talked about this in that obviously this can be a big problem with a lot of people, and I see this all the time when I'm delivering training. They are running the waterlink spin as a lot of us are these days. They have a they are a reagent test, they're testing the true salt level. Our pens, our T11 conductivity meters, they are conductivity meters or T more so a TDS with a mathematical equation working in the in the box there somewhere to come to a salt level. That in itself can create huge problems because our chlorinators on the wall are doing something similar. And so the salt level that's actually in the water versus the conductivity meter reading that they're getting on the wall. The wall saying it's fine, or worse yet, we put salt in because the spin says add salt, and then the box goes in to overload. And I get this all the time in training, and it's well, your TDS is high. You actually need to dilute the water.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Yeah, it's uh it's a real challenge. I I would say once a week, and I will have that that that question from somebody, whether it's a a new to salt market around the world, or even you know, the occasional person in the Australian market that goes, Hey, you know, I've I've tested this pool three times, three different ways. I've used a salt pen, I've used a strip from the big green box, and I've got my corrosion electronics test meter, and I've run it on spin, and I've got a 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000. Which one do you think is right? And my answer is typically they could actually all be right. You just gotta understand your methods, understand the tolerances. You know, some products have a really wide tolerance. So, you know, a a 4,000 reading could actually be 1,000 either way, it could be three or five. For me, I I've I've been a huge advocate of spin for a long period of time. The fact it's testing chlorides for me is the key. Because without the chloride, you can't get chlorine production. Nothing. So you know whether it's sodium chloride or magnesium chloride, that chloride component is the key to what we do, is chlorine salts. And if you don't have the right type of salt, then you can't get any chloride production.

SPEAKER_05 52:00

And a high TDS level doesn't mean that you've got a high salt level.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

No. Certainly in our commercial space, we we we market one of our products and say, you know, it uh it operates at 1200 TDS, but it then goes on to clarify it must be 900 ppm chlorines. At the chloride, there's no chlorine production, and it seems pretty obvious, but sometimes that's that can be missed.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

It's interesting you say that actually, Lee, because yeah, we've installed a few chlorinators, different brands, and they've just given a TDS reading. Your TDS needs to be X amount, but they don't specify what your salt reading should be.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

And I always find that quite interesting. That there will be a certain amount of salt, but you and I both know that it could all be uh other total dissolved solids, not necessarily salts, and there's no chloride there to make chloride.

SPEAKER_05 53:02

Yeah, that and by running their salt water chlorinator on that gas, so to speak, they're they're they're stressing that cell out, they're shortening its life, and they're not doing the customer any favors.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

So we see it frequently. We we do we've got a number of pools that bring water from ground, and we have a number of pools that bring water from ocean. And ground can typically can be really challenging. I've got the project on the go in Indonesia at the moment. Chloride level, it looks like it's just in range, but the rest of the water balance is all over. And again, when we bring water from ocean, so I think one of our biggest pools, 22 million litres up at Sheridan Port Douglas, they bring the water directly from the ocean. Obviously, we have to deal with very hard water, very h high calcium in terms of that seawater environment. So you're dealing with a whole bunch of other issues around water balance and water chemistry in in that type of thing.

SPEAKER_05 53:58

And that's a whole nother conversation for another day.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

So many questions I might have right now, but you ever save a few. Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 54:06

We've been going for an hour and we could go for another hour. Thank you so much, Lee. We I think we need to stop here because if we don't, we will just keep going.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

I'd love to come back and talk about frostbates at some other stuff. And perhaps you know, a little bit about the the way in which the manufacturing happens and how every layer equates to a certain number of hours.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

That risk looked like. Because if you can imagine as we paint more and more layers onto the material, if we get something wrong, the cost and the risk becomes extraordinarily high.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Much much pointed now that the cost of the is $150 or $1,600 when it was $400.

SPEAKER_05 54:51

It is definitely a precious metal now, that price.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Not so much rare, it is precious. I like that. I will I will take that with me today.

SPEAKER_05 55:01

And uh and I'd love to delve more into the whole magnesium chloride, sodium chloride conversation, because I think especially in the US US market, they really haven't tapped into that yet. And I think if somebody over there is interested in taking it and running with it, they could change the market just like the market's been changed in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Indeed. Every market's very different. So I mentioned there a project in Indonesia, they are highly focused on salt getting onto their skin and increasing how much the sun burns their skin. It's the sole and total focus of the conversation. We want low salt because we don't want the salt to burn us.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

So every market.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Yeah, every market's got their own little uh little differences. Maybe for Shane in New Zealand, is there any sun there at the moment, Shane?

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Uh it's actually been really nice for the last three weeks, actually. Strangely.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to chat today. Hopefully the the viewers or the listeners, those that are listening today, have got something out of it. So great.

SPEAKER_05 56:09

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Thanks, Lee.

SPEAKER_05 56:12

Um, listeners, if you have any questions, and if you have any questions for Lee around saltwater chlorination, we will definitely get him back. So make sure you drop us a line at talkingpools at gmail.com and Rudy will make sure those questions go to the most applicable host. And in this case, if it's saltwater, you want the Aussie crew absolutely. So until next week, thank you very much for listening. We hope you have a great week ahead and we look forward to you joining us then. Thanks very much from Mondays down under on the Talking Pools podcast. See ya.