In fact, DE for water purification is commonly attributed to have been developed by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Laboratories who were looking for a new type of water filter suitable for rapid mobile military operations during the Second World War. However, it had been used for water purification as early as 1892 during a cholera epidemic in Hamburg, Germany, after Wilhelm Berkefeld recognized the ability of diatomaceous earth to filter water and invented Berkefeld filters.

Sometime during or after the war, DE filtration was applied to swimming pool water, perhaps because it was popularized by Hollywood, and became the dominant filtration method, especially in Southern California pools, where it is still widely used today.

DE use was still in its infancy in 1956, when Dick Meissner began manufacturing DE filter bags for Anthony Pools. They were called the Anthony McIntosh filter bag, and they were the first products made by Unicel, with Meissner its president and founder.

Meanwhile, cartridge filtration only emerged as a viable pool medium following Dupont’s invention of Reemay, a new non-woven but rather spun-bonded 100-percent polyester material.

Early efforts at cartridge filtration were made with a paper-type material that did not hold up well in swimming pool applications.

Meissner recognized the potential of this new medium and in 1964, the company came out with the first cartridge element made of Reemay, which is still widely used in today’s cartridge filters.

In the decades that have followed, many advancements and new technologies have emerged for swimming pool filtration.

For example, recently, Pleatco has introduced a new patent-pending Advanced Point Bonded Filtration Fabric for cartridge filtration.

Sand and DE alternatives also abound.

In this special issue of Service Industry News, we’ll take a closer look at some of these pool and spa filter options.