Rotronic offers all-in-one kit solution for Legionnaires’ disease

Bassersdorf, Switzerland: – Rotronic AG, the world’s leading measurement solutions specialist, has developed an all-in-one starter kit to help establishments monitor their water distribution systems to prevent Legionnaires’ disease.

The Rotronic kit includes all components needed to monitor temperature at key points in a water distribution system, including hardware and software.

Deadly outbreak

Legionnaires’ disease first entered the world’s consciousness in July 1976 when 130 attendees at a convention hosted by the American Legion war veterans’ associations at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia contracted severe cases of pneumonia, from which 25 of them died.

A subsequent investigation by US public health authorities identified the cause of the mass outbreak, by now dubbed ‘Legionnaires’ disease’, as a bacterium, Legionella Pneumophila, that had been breeding in the cooling tower of the hotel’s air conditioning system, and subsequently spread as aerosol vapor throughout the building.

Subsequent Legionella outbreaks have been linked to hot tubs, cooling towers, decorative fountains and water used for drinking and showering.

Risk factors

Investigations led to new regulations worldwide for climate control and water distribution systems.

Hotspots for legionella include any installation where untreated or under-treated water is lukewarm and where it is possible for it to become an aerosol mist in the environment. The bacteria multiply between 22 °C and 45 °C with the optimum growth temperature between 35 °C and 40 °C. Effective and consistent monitoring of water quality is essential to maintain control.

Disinfection measures

The most effective preventative measure is thermal disinfection, with water heaters, storage tanks as well as the complete hot-water pipe system including taps all heated to above 70 °C.

A further solution is chemical disinfection, adding chemicals such as chlorine dioxide, ozone, hydrogen peroxide, hypochlorous acid, etc. to drinking water to kill off any legionella present. Due to the partly harmful residues in the lines, chemical disinfection should only be carried out by trained personnel.

UV Irradiation is a disinfection method that uses short wavelength ultraviolet light to kill or inactivate microorganisms by destroying the nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA.

Control systems

Since disinfection is either impractical or very costly for most piping systems, the alternative is to design and monitor water distribution system systems so that no sections are stagnant, containing warm water (between 25 °C and 55 °C) that remains still for longer than four hours.

HSE guidelines dictate that cold-water temperature must be below 20 °C and hot water above 60 °C. Hence monitoring is critical. Achieving these steps will help prevent the formation of biofilms on the insides of the pipes. Finally, even with these controls in place public and commercial properties must have water samples tested regularly by an authorized laboratory.

Rotronic offers a range of solutions to combat Legionella, such as its continuous monitoring RMS software that makes all measured values and data available in a concise and neat form, exactly as required. It is conveniently available anywhere, on any device.

Warning of potential risks can be obtained by logging temperature and flow velocity at critical points in the distribution system and evaluating the data. Rotronic now offers a starter kit for this comprising all components needed to monitor a water distribution system, including hardware and software.

About Rotronic

Founded in 1965, Rotronic AG has become one of the world’s leading names in humidity and temperature measurement and is renowned for the high quality of its Swiss-made meters, instrumentation, sensors, data loggers and other measuring equipment.

Its specialist measuring solutions are in daily use worldwide in pharmaceutical, chemical, foodstuffs and many other industrial sectors.
Rotronic’s lines of business include products for measuring humidity, temperature, CO2 and differential pressure. As a leader in the field of humidity and temperature measurement, Rotronic is also increasingly making a name for itself as a world leader in the measurement of other parameters including low dew point, CO2, differential pressure, process pressure and airflow.