Like his predecessors, Dr Graham Rideal was also involved in research and development into filtration systems and, through his company Whitehouse Scientific, which he founded in 1983, has developed several unique and absolute methods of filter characterisation. In the process, he as published over 100 patents, peer reviewed papers and magazine articles on the use of glass microspheres both for certifying filters and as calibrants for particle size measuring instruments.

One of his most successful inventions was in developing a sonic pore sizing instrument for calibrating crude oil sand screens. When extracting oil from deep underground, any sand contamination can result in multimillion dollar breakdowns. Tuning the pore sizes of the stainless steel meshes to the exact particle size of the sand particles, not only prevents catastrophic breakdowns, but significantly reduces the operational energy costs.

On a literally more down-to-earth application, the Whitehouse Scientific laboratory has been used in aircraft crash investigations where faulty fuel filters were suspected in bringing down the plane at London Heathrow.

Dr Rideal took a keen interest in the environment recognising that filtration is a powerful solution in cleaning up and preventing pollution in the world. As part of his investigation into intercontinental pollution, and following his research of cleaning flue gas from burning coal, he went on an expedition with Ray Mears to the Canadian Northern Territories to investigate the problem first hand. In an interview with a First Nation community leader, he discovered that entire communities have been lost to pollution, which destroyed their environment and their way of life.

When building his new laboratory therefore, he incorporated the most energy efficient building materials available and installed a biomass boiler and solar panels to provide the heat and air conditioning. There is also a large rain harvesting system to supplement the water supply. What was an old 19th century barn has now been converted into an ultra-modern, state-of-the -art laboratory with a record breaking energy efficiency and one of the lowest carbon footprint laboratories in the UK.

The name Whitehouse Scientific was taken from The White House Antique shop, which Graham's wife Liz established in 1978 to renovate and sell stripped pine furniture. Graham’s woodworking skills came in very useful when he created the period office in the new laboratory using reclaimed antique pine.

In former years, The White House was known as The Brown Cow pub and had some very useful beer cellars. It was in these cellars that first small laboratory was set up, originally to classify very fine industrial diamonds and later to produce the first particle size and filter calibration standards.

In his spare time, Graham was a keen amateur musician playing clarinet and saxophones in an orchestra and band. He used his skills on a voluntary basis to play in local primary schools and to raise money for the children’s wing of the local hospital.

He even played at social events at the World Filtration Congress and other international Filtration conferences.