Rethinking Pool Refurbishment: Why Better Filtration Can Reduce Chemical Dependency
Commercial pool operators are being asked to deliver cleaner water, lower chemical use, and lower operating costs, often inside plant rooms that were never designed for modern filtration upgrades. For facility managers, contractors, and municipal aquatic operators, this is not a future challenge. It is the day-to-day reality of running older facilities against standards that keep moving upward.
Sand and perlite systems have served the industry for decades, but the limitations of traditional media filtration are becoming harder to work around. These systems carry a significant footprint, consume large volumes of water during backwash, and when filtration performance is inconsistent, the typical response is to increase chemical correction rather than address the filtration itself. In constrained plant rooms and retrofit projects, the challenge is compounded: upgrading conventional equipment often means structural modifications, extended downtime, and capital expenditure that many operators cannot justify.
The question being asked more often now is whether better filtration, rather than more chemistry, is the right starting point for a refurbishment. The answer, increasingly, is yes. And the technology to support that approach is available today.
A Different Approach: Capture, Then Release
Where conventional media beds can retain contaminants and require frequent chemical adjustment to maintain acceptable water quality, advanced membrane filtration works differently. It physically captures contaminants at the source and releases them through short, frequent, targeted backwash cycles. This means the filtration system is doing more of the actual work. When the filter is genuinely removing contaminants rather than letting them pass through, you are not relying on chemistry to pick up the slack. The underlying technology is not new. Ceramic silicon carbide (SiC) membranes have a long track record in demanding industrial settings, including marine water treatment and industrial wastewater, where poor filtration performance is simply not an option. Commercial pools have much in common with those environments: bather loads fluctuate, regulatory standards are strict, and the pool generally needs to stay open.
QlariFlow is LiqTech’s ceramic membrane filtration platform for commercial pools, and it is built around exactly this principle. Operating at low pressure, the hydrophilic SiC membrane maintains consistent filtration performance while reducing pump energy requirements. Frequent, short backwash cycles remove contaminants before they can accumulate, supporting stable water quality over time and reducing both water consumption and the need for reactive chemical dosing. The savings on energy, water, and chemicals come from how the system works, not from projections added onto a product brochure.
For refurbishment projects, the compact footprint matters as much as the filtration performance. Each QlariFlow module is sized to pass through a standard doorway at around 83 cm in width, requiring no demolition or structural modifications. That matters in older facilities where plant rooms were never built with future upgrades in mind, and where conventional projects tend to mean construction work, downtime, and disruption. Modules come pre-installed with integrated controls, so commissioning on the day of delivery is straightforward. And if demand grows, capacity can be added module by module rather than replacing the whole setup.
For many facilities, the operational pressures are not just technical. Staffing is harder to sustain, budgets are tighter, and the tolerance for unplanned downtime is lower than ever. The system provides remote visibility into key operating data via WiFi or built-in 4G/5G, accessible through an on-site panel and a mobile app. LiqTech’s service team shares the same remote access, which means issues can often be picked up and sorted before they affect the pool or force it to close. For facilities running with small teams or without a dedicated technician on site, that kind of visibility makes a real difference day to day.
Three Projects. Three Markets. One Platform.
Over the past several months, QlariFlow has moved into three different markets. Each project is different in scale and context, but together they show how ceramic membrane filtration is being taken up in real public and institutional pool environments.
Three recent projects show how this is playing out in practice. In the Netherlands, five QlariFlow systems have been installed at Aquacentrum Den Helder, a municipal facility in the north of the country, delivered in partnership with Lotec across a phased programme that began in January 2026. The plant room constraints at Den Helder ruled out a conventional upgrade, which is precisely where the compact, doorway-width module format made the difference. It is the largest QlariFlow pool installation in Europe to date. In the United States, three systems are being installed at the Weston County School District No. 1 Aquatic Center in Newcastle, Wyoming, in collaboration with Treatment Specialties, Powered by North American Filtration, marking LiqTech’s first commercial pool reference in one of the world’s biggest pool markets. And in Australia, LiqTech has secured its largest single pool order to date: 10 systems for the Plumpton Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Fraser Rise, Victoria, with Waterco Limited. Plumpton is a fully electric facility targeting 5 Star Green Star certification, and filtration was chosen with energy efficiency and sustainability at the centre of the decision. When it opens, it is expected to be Australia’s first community aquatic centre running ceramic membrane filtration.
What This Signals for the Sector
Three projects across three continents in a short window says something about where this technology is heading. Operators want filtration that reduces their dependency on chemicals and keeps energy costs down. Facility managers want upgrades that do not shut the pool for weeks. Developers want systems that support sustainability targets and cost less to run over time. And the regulatory bar keeps rising. Those pressures are not unique to any one market, which is part of why the interest is spreading.
Water reuse and energy efficiency used to be nice-to-haves in aquatic facility design. Increasingly, they are central requirements. Den Helder, Wyoming, and Plumpton each reflect that shift in their own way, and ceramic membrane filtration is proving to be a practical fit for facilities trying to meet those demands without major construction or disruption.
What the industry is witnessing is not simply the adoption of a new filtration technology. It reflects a change in how operators are approaching refurbishment. Rather than starting with chemical correction, more of them are asking first whether the filtration is doing its job properly. That conversation is happening in more markets now, and the projects coming through show it.
Learn more about QlariFlow: www.liqtech.com/water-systems/commercial-pool
