Well Treatment Chemicals

Osorno's well treatment chemicals remove scaling, iron deposits, and persistent bacteria (i.e. iron bacteria or bacteria hidden in biofilms).

Osorno's chemicals are much more safe and efficient than commonly used methods such as concentrated acid (also known as hydrochloric or "muriatic" acid) or shock chlorination.

Osorno discourages the use of concentrated acid because:

• The user can easily inhale its fumes, posing a significant health risk;
• It is highly corrosive, even with stainless steel;
• In wells, it can react with deposits of manganese oxide to form chlorine gas.

Osorno discourages shock chlorination because:

• It produces chlorinated organic compounds that persist in the environment, which can harm living beings as many of these compounds are carcinogenic;
• The high pH of hypochlorite solution (bleach, liquid chlorine) causes precipitation of calcium ions, which can shield bacteria from the disinfectant. This is obviously counterproductive.

Well Cleaning

Shock chlorination raises both the pH and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) of well water dramatically, increasing scaling within a well.

Osorno’s Well Cleaning Solution, however, lowers pH to about 2 and lowers ORP into a reducing range. Under these conditions, lime scale dissolves, and iron and manganese oxides reduce to soluble, almost colourless compounds.

Our Well Cleaning Solution will also disinfect wells, although not as strongly as our Well Disinfection Kit (below). If your well requires both cleaning and disinfection, well cleaning must always be the first step.

The chemicals in our Well Cleaning Solution are all food-grade, so any traces left in the well or the pipe system pose no health risk.

Read our brochure on Well Cleaning

Well Disinfection

Osorno’s Well Disinfection Kit is based on chlorine dioxide (not to be confused with chlorine), which is very effective at destroying bacteria. Chlorine dioxide even destroys iron bacteria and bacteria hidden in biofilms.

Osorno’s Well Disinfection Kit also cleans wells, although not as efficiently as our Well Cleaning Solution.

The chemicals in Osorno’s Well Disinfection Kit are all food-grade, so any traces left in the well or the pipe system pose no health risk.

Read our brochure on Well Disinfection