Ruthenium shock Part 1: why swimming pool chlorinator prices are under pressure
By Declan McGuire
Declan McGuire of Pool Controls outlines the current issues with supply of a critical element involved in the production of chlorinator cells, and why that is leading to price pressure on salt chlorinators.
Over the past 12 months, the global pool industry has been quietly facing a major supply-chain challenge for a material that most pool owners will never see but which sits at the heart of every saltwater chlorinator cell.
That material is ruthenium, a rare precious metal essential for the coatings used on saltwater chlorinator electrodes.
In the space of just one year, the market price of ruthenium has increased from $US476 to approximately $US1550 per troy ounce (as of March 13). That represents a 225 per cent increase – more than tripling the price in a very short period of time.
For manufacturers of saltwater chlorinators, this is not a minor fluctuation. It is a fundamental shift in production cost.
Unlike many industrial metals, ruthenium is not mined directly. Instead, it is produced exclusively as a by-product of platinum and nickel mining, which means the global supply cannot easily increase when demand rises.
Global production of ruthenium is extremely small – approximately 30 tonnes per year worldwide. The primary producing countries include South Africa, Russia and Canada.
The largest consumer of ruthenium globally is not the pool industry – it is the electronics sector. Ruthenium plays a key role in the manufacturing of magnetic storage disks used in conventional hard disk drives (HDDs). The metal is used as a coating layer that allows disks to store greater amounts of data.
Hard drives are still widely used in applications where massive amounts of data must be stored reliably, including data centres, cloud storage infrastructure and enterprise computing systems.
As global data demand continues to grow exponentially, the electronics industry has been consuming increasing quantities of ruthenium — placing further pressure on an already limited supply.
The escalating price
The chart on the bottom of the page illustrates the dramatic increase in ruthenium prices over the past 12 months.
In the pool industry, ruthenium is critical to the performance of saltwater chlorinator cells.
The metal is used as part of a ruthenium-based catalytic coating applied to titanium electrode plates inside the salt cell. This coating allows the electrolysis process to occur efficiently, converting salt (sodium chloride) into chlorine to sanitise pool water.
In simple terms: no ruthenium coating means no salt chlorinator cell.
The price increase is particularly significant because the salt cell is the most expensive component of a chlorinator system. For many manufacturers, more than 50 per cent of the total chlorinator manufacturing cost is tied to the salt cell alone. When the price of ruthenium triples, the impact flows directly into the cost of producing the cell itself.
This means manufacturers are now facing a scenario where the core component of a chlorinator has effectively doubled in cost.
Put simply, when the price of ruthenium rises sharply, the cost of the entire chlorinator system follows. With only around 30 tonnes produced annually worldwide, even small shifts in demand can have dramatic pricing consequences.
As things stand today, the industry is entering a period where salt chlorinator manufacturing costs are likely to remain volatile, and price adjustments may become unavoidable.
One thing is certain: we are in for a bumpy ride.
Inside a salt cell: why ruthenium matters
While the recent rise in ruthenium prices is affecting the entire chlorinator market, understanding how salt cells are manufactured helps explain why this rare metal is so critical.
Every saltwater chlorinator cell begins life as bare titanium plates, typically around 1mm thick. Titanium is used because it is highly resistant to corrosion and can withstand the harsh electrochemical environment inside a salt cell.
These plates are the electrodes, consisting of cathodes (positively charged) and anodes (negatively charged).
Manufacturers coat the titanium plates with a mixture of ruthenium oxide and iridium, suspended in an acidic base solution that allows the material to be applied to the titanium surface through a coating process similar to electroplating or painting.
Once coated, the plates are baked in a high‑temperature oven to permanently bond the catalytic layer to the titanium surface.
This process is repeated multiple times, gradually building up the coating layer on the plate.
A high‑quality salt cell typically involves 15 or more coating cycles, which is generally considered 100 per cent coating thickness.
Each coating stage involves applying the ruthenium/iridium mixture; baking the plate in an oven; repeating the process again and again. This layered structure creates the catalytic surface required for efficient electrolysis.
A fully coated cell will normally deliver more than 10,000 hours of operation, which in real‑world pool conditions typically equates to four to five years of life, depending on factors such as pump run time, chlorinator sizing relative to pool volume, and water balance.
Pressure on manufacturers
With ruthenium prices increasing by so much, manufacturers across the industry are facing difficult decisions.
Because ruthenium is the most expensive component in the coating, reducing the amount used can significantly reduce manufacturing costs. Some manufacturers are now reducing coating thickness, sometimes by half or more, in order to maintain price competitiveness.
The problem is that coating thickness directly affects cell life. If the coating is reduced by
50 per cent, the longevity of the cell can be reduced by a similar proportion.
One of the biggest challenges in the market today is that coating thickness cannot be seen. A salt cell with 100 per cent coating and one with 30 per cent to 50 per cent coating will look virtually identical to the naked eye.
To a pool owner – or even a pool technician – the two cells can appear exactly the same.
However, the real difference may only become apparent years later when the cell fails prematurely.
Currently, there is no universal industry standard that measures or certifies salt cell coating thickness or expected operational life.
As a result, buyers have very few ways to assess the true quality of a chlorinator cell.
In practice, the only reliable indicators tend to be manufacturer reputation, warranty length, and product price.
In many cases cheaper chlorinators and shorter warranties can indicate that less coating material has been used, which ultimately means the end user may find themselves replacing cells more frequently.
IMAGE: Ruthenium is produced exclusively as a by-product of platinum and nickel mining, and only 30 tonnes are produced each year. AdobeStock
