How to Clean and Restore Ceramic Water Filter Medias?

24 December 2018

Most water filter medias nowadays are the disposable type.  The manufacturers often recommend to  to replace the filter media once every 6 to 9 months.  There are also special types of water filter that use ceramic as a filter media.  They are either in dome, dish or cylindrical shape.    

For these kind of filter medias,  the manufacturers often suggest to sandpaper the surface of the media with sand paper or rough sponge once it is clogged with dirt.

However,  after some operations, one would find that this cleaning method will no longer work especially in gravity flowing water filter like this type.    Water just refused to flow properly.

Why?

Water filter,  especially the ceramic filter,  has tiny little micropores to trap dirts and microorganisms of larger than 0.3 microns,  Micro living organism such as living microorganism,  fungi, microprobes or single cell living Eukaryotes are always present in water.

These microorganism can clog up the micropores of the ceramic filter media rendering it useless as water filter material unless they are be removed regularly.  Some of these microorganism will also release air that can sometimes be trapped in the micropores of the filter,  reducing the flow of water.

How to Remove them?

1.  Back washing or Priming the filter

If it is mostly air that is being trapped in the pores,  one could prime the ceramic filter using a soft rubber washer as shown in this video for the Berkey Filters.    However,  this method will need careful control of the water pressure or some ceramic filter can easily crack under such pressure.   Also,  this method has little or no effect in getting rid of living microorganisms.  

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2.  Boiling the Filter

This method involves filling up the filter media with water and then water boil the filter under simmering heat.  

Step by Step

Description	Action	Remarks
1.   Filling the filter with water	1.  Put the filter under a tap and fill it up with water 2. use a chop stick or similar to “poke” the outlet hole until all the air inside the filter are released.	Fill the filter with full water
2.   Placing inside a pot	Place the filter upside down (i.e. with the outlet facing up) in a small pot and fill the pot with water,  making sure the filter is only ½ to 3/4 immersed in water
3.  Boil the water	Under simmering heat,  bring water to  boil for about 3-5 minutes.   Using a small straw to pick up some boiling water from the pot  and transfer the boiling water slowing into the outlet hole of the filter to ensure the water is always full inside the filter	The topping up of the boiling water inside the filter media will ensure there will be  a water pressure to force the microorganisms eventually out of the micropores under  gravity.

Precautions

1.  Always make sure the filter is half or 3/4 immersed in hot water and never allow hot water to touch the  plastic part of the filter.  This is because the boiling water can damage and distort the shape of the plastic;

2.  Never lift the filter from boiling water by holding the base of the plastic as the base can be easily dislocated from the filter.  This is because the boiling water that heats up the ceramic may soften the hot glue that is used to hold the plastic base to the filter;

3.  Handle the hot water with care.  If needed be,  use an electric fan to cool the pot and the filter media together before removing the filter from the pot.

Results 

This filter shown in the video has not much water flow before the boiling water treatment.   Now it is flowing about 75 drops of water per minute.

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