While owning a swimming pool can provide hours of fun and enjoyment every year, all pools require careful maintenance in order to keep the swimming environment safe and clean. The traditional way to achieve these goals is to chlorinate the water. However, using chlorine to maintain clean pool water has its downsides, especially with indoor swimming pools. Yet, chlorine is not the only substance that can be used to keep swimming water free from contaminants. Swimming pool bromine is an excellent alternative to chlorine and is becoming more and more popular among pool, spa and hot tub owners.

While opening a pool and maintaining it throughout the swimming season, it's extremely important to keep the water clean and sanitized by killing any algae and bacteria that may be present in the pool. If the pool is not sanitized properly and contaminants enter the water, swimmers will be at risk of contracting various infections and diseases. For example, contaminated swimming water can cause infections of the ears, nose and throat as well as more life-threatening conditions such as meningitis. Since the risks caused by unsanitary pool water are significant and serious, proper pool maintenance is not an issue to be overlooked or taken lightly.

However, using chlorine to keep your swimming pool safe and clean can present another set of problems. When combining with organic matter, chlorine forms chloramines. These chemical compounds build up in chlorinated swimming pools and, as their concentrations increase in the water, they produced a sharp characteristic chlorine smell and can also cause severe eye and skin irritation. While some people are more sensitive than others to the noxious quality of chloramines, most swimmers will experience some irritation as the concentration of chloramines increases.

While eye and skin irritation can be very troubling to swimming pool owners, so can the smell of chlorine. This is especially true for households with indoor swimming pools. When in an enclosed space, the acrid smell of chlorine can become almost unbearable to some people and it can also seep into other parts of the home. As a result, there are many pool owners out there who would prefer to be able to keep their swimming pools clean and safe without the use of chlorine.

Luckily, pool bromine provides an excellent alternative to chlorine. The chemistry of bromine is similar to that of chlorine and it sanitizes pool water powerfully by killing pathogens through oxidation, just as chlorine does. However, despite these similarities, there are some important differences between the two compounds. To begin with, when bromine combines with organic matter, it forms bromamines. In contrast to chloramines, bromamines do not produce such a strong smell. This is the major reason why pool bromine is becoming so popular for indoor locations. In addition, bromamines don't have the same noxious qualities as chloramines and, therefore, are far gentler on the eyes, hair and skin.

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