1. Project Background & Operating Conditions
This case focuses on the product development project of a SPA and swimming-pool electrolytic chlorination system. The end-user equipment relies on in-situ electrolysis of salt-containing water to generate free chlorine for water disinfection, which puts high comprehensive requirements on MMO dimensionally stable anodes.
In actual working conditions, the electrolyzer runs in saline water environment with continuous or intermittent cyclic operation mode. The system will face variable water quality fluctuations, periodic polarity-reversal self-cleaning cycles, changes of water temperature, as well as scaling risks caused by water hardness. The core pain point faced by the customer is how to obtain stable chlorine output while extending the service life of electrodes as much as possible. Short electrode service life will directly increase the after-sales maintenance cost of complete chlorinator equipment and damage end-user experience.
The customer was undertaking product iteration and intelligent controller development for their SPA‑pool electrolytic disinfection equipment. As they refined their complete machine design, they sought a professional electrode supplier capable of delivering targeted coating solutions, practical substrate‑structure recommendations, clear system operating‑boundary guidelines, and credible performance‑and‑service‑life verification references. These technical inputs were essential to de‑risk their new‑product development, guiding both mechanical‑hardware optimization and the tuning of core control algorithms for their in‑house built intelligent chlorinator system.
2. Core Customer Requirements
During technical communication, the customer put forward multi-dimensional development requirements centering on long-life electrolytic chlorine generation:
Coating formulation selection
Identify proven, reliable MMO coating systems optimized for chlorine evolution, and assess real‑world performance of various precious‑metal coating options.
Substrate structural optimization
Evaluate expanded titanium mesh as substrate for higher electrochemical active area and better electrolyte/gas transport; compare practical advantages and drawbacks between solid titanium plate and mesh designs.
Service-life oriented parameter definition
Obtain recommended operating limits for electrolytic loading and the correlation between effective electrode area and chlorine output, to prevent premature coating failure from improper parameters.
Adapt to self-cleaning mechanism
Verify MMO coating tolerance to periodic polarity‑reversal anti‑scaling cycles; identify alternative maintenance solutions if frequent polarity reversal shortens electrode service life.
Intelligent controller development support
Receive electrode‑related protection threshold recommendations for developing a real‑time closed‑loop intelligent controller, to avoid electrode over‑stress damage in firmware logic.
Performance verification expectation
Hope to obtain test reference to evaluate the expected service life of electrodes under simulated actual working conditions, supporting their whole-machine reliability verification.
3. Customized Technical Solution
Combined with the customer's application scenario and long-life priority goal, NAVI Titanium's engineering team put forward a complete set of electrode solution covering coating system, titanium substrate and structural design.
| Item | Recommended Solution & Explanation |
| MMO Coating System | Proven Ru‑Ir‑Pt composite MMO coating. Formulation optimized for chlorine‑generating catalytic activity, complex‑water anti‑erosion and polarity‑reversal resistance, with extensive field experience in saline water electrolysis. |
| Titanium Base Material | Grade 1 pure titanium substrate. Solid sandblasted titanium plate is preferred to eliminate long‑term deformation risk. Expanded titanium mesh is optional for higher specific surface area, though deformation risk and application validation are required. |
| Electrode Area Design Principle | Expand effective electrode area appropriately to lower unit‑surface electrolytic load, a key measure for extending service life. Actual area is tailored to equipment installation space and target chlorine output. |
Confidential Notice: Exact precious‑metal loading, coating thickness, precise dimensional parameters and internal formula details belong to NAVI Titanium's proprietary technical data. These detailed parameters can be formally provided for qualified partners after signing non‑disclosure agreement according to project progress.
4. Operation, Maintenance & Protection Recommendations
Even with high-quality MMO coated electrodes, unreasonable system setting will still greatly shorten the usable life. Therefore, besides electrode hardware scheme, we delivered systematic operation and protection suggestions to guide the customer's controller development and later-stage equipment debugging.
4.1 Polarity reversal and anti-scaling maintenance
Periodic polarity reversal enables self‑cleaning against surface scale. However, overly frequent reversal subjects the oxide coating to heavy cathode‑mode loading and accelerates degradation. Extend reversal intervals as much as anti‑scaling requirements permit. For heavy scale under poor water quality, perform auxiliary chemical cleaning: remove electrodes, soak in dilute acid, then rinse thoroughly. Short reverse‑current pulses only remove light scale and should not serve as primary long‑term cleaning, as frequent pulsing may damage the coating.
4.2 Electrical parameter protection
Set reasonable upper-limit protection for electrolytic voltage and forward working current, to avoid electrode running under overload condition for a long time. Though extremely low current will not damage coating directly, long-term low-load state may bring risks such as microbial attachment on electrode surface. For intermittent-working equipment, low-current periodic maintenance mode can be added as optional function.
4.3 Water-quality interlock protection
Water temperature significantly impacts electrode service life. High temperatures accelerate precious‑metal dissolution from the MMO coating. Implement temperature interlock logic: lower operating current at the warning threshold and halt electrolysis above the safety limit. Real‑time salinity monitoring is also required; insufficient salt triggers steep cell‑voltage increases and extra electrode stress, calling for current reduction or alarms. Circulating‑water pH must stay within a proper range: high pH promotes calcium‑magnesium scaling, while low pH worsens precious‑metal leaching.
4.4 Control strategy suggestion
Constant-current control is the preferred control mode for chlorinator system to guarantee stable chlorine production. Meanwhile take electrolytic cell voltage as early-warning signal and hard-protection trigger parameter, so as to perceive abnormal conditions such as coating aging, insufficient salinity and circuit fault in advance.
5. Performance Verification & Project Outcome
The recommended Ru-Ir-Pt composite MMO coating has gone through NAVI Titanium's internal accelerated aging evaluation under simulated on-site water-quality environment, to examine coating stability under continuous electrolysis.
From the feedback of similar finished-machine projects, electrodes adopting this technical scheme can achieve service performance beyond initial design expectation under normal system configuration and standardized operation. Original complete accelerated test records, detailed aging curve and raw measurement data are internal confidential information. For formal cooperative projects, relevant reference materials can be shared under NDA constraint to support customer's reliability assessment.
After adopting the overall solution including coating selection, substrate configuration and system protection rules, the customer can realize stable and durable chlorine-generating performance for SPA and pool disinfection equipment. The whole set of suggestions covers hardware electrode selection as well as software control logic reference, helping customers reduce the risk of premature electrode failure in new-product development stage.
NAVI Titanium – Available Supporting Services
Beyond supplying finished MMO-coated titanium electrode products, NAVI Titanium provides full-cycle technical support for chlorine-generation electrolysis projects from prototype development to mass production:
Application‑oriented solution consultation
Analyze your on‑site working conditions and project targets to deliver customized electrode proposals instead of generic standard solutions.
Custom electrode design & manufacturing
Customize Grade 1 titanium substrates, MMO coating formulations, dimensions and surface treatments to match your requirements.
Prototype sample supply for validation
Supply pre‑production samples for lab testing and prototype evaluation to support new‑product iteration.
Technical support & after‑sales service
Offer guidance for installation and daily maintenance; support root‑cause analysis and optimization suggestions for abnormal electrode issues across R&D and mass‑production stages.
If you are carrying out development or upgrading of electrolytic chlorine-generation equipment, welcome to send us your project working-condition requirements. Our engineering team will reply with targeted proposal for your project.
