A Chamberland filter, also known as a Pasteur–Chamberland filter, is a

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

water filter invented by Charles Chamberland in 1884. It was developed after Henry Doulton's ceramic water filter of 1827. It is similar to the Berkefeld filter in principle.

Design

The filter consists of a permeable unglazed porcelain tube (called bisque) that contains a ring of enameled porcelain through which the inflow pipe fits. The core of the porcelain is made up of a metal pipe with holes through which water flows out and is collected. Inflow is pressurized so filtration occurs under force. There are 13 types: ''L₁'' to ''L₁₃''. L₁ filters have the coarsest pore size while L₁₃ have the finest.

Usefulness

The Pasteur-Chamberland filter is as useful as other

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

and

filters. It is a good bacterial water filter used mainly as a high volume water filter.Textbook of Microbiology by Ananthanarayan and Panikar, The filter works more quickly when the water supplied is under pressure. As with other filters of its kind, it cannot filter very small particles like

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are ...

es or

mycoplasma ''Mycoplasma'' is a genus of bacteria that, like the other members of the class ''Mollicutes'', lack a cell wall, and its peptidoglycan, around their cell membrane. The absence of peptidoglycan makes them naturally resistant to antibiotics ...

. It is used in removal of organisms from a fluid culture in order to obtain the bacterial toxins.

History

The Chamberland filter was developed by Charles Edouard Chamberland, one of

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, Fermentation, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the la ...

’s assistants in Paris. The original intention was to produce filtered water, free of

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

, for use in Pasteur's experiments. The filter became increasingly known for its ability to filter out bacteria, the smallest living organisms then known. The filter was patented by Chamberland and Pasteur in America and Europe. An American company licensed the name in

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. They sold filters to private homes, hotels, restaurants, and the 1893 Chicago

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...

. Use of the Pasteur-Chamberland filter led to the discovery that

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...

and

tetanus Tetanus (), also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'' and characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually l ...

toxins, among others, could still cause illness even after filtration. Identification of these toxins contributed to the development of

antitoxin An antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacterium, bacteria in response to toxin exposure. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, the ...

s to treat such diseases. It was also discovered that a type of substance, initially known as a "filterable virus", passed through the smallest Pasteur-Chamberland filters, and replicated itself inside living cells. The discovery that biological entities smaller than bacteria existed was important in establishing the field of

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamberland Filter Microbiology equipment Water filters 19th-century inventions French inventions