Berthollet's great new developments in works regarding chemistry made him, in a short period of time, an active participant of the Academy of Science in 1780.

He first produced a modern bleaching liquid in 1789 in his laboratory on the quay Javel in Paris, France, by passing chlorine gas through a solution of sodium carbonate.

Berthollet was engaged in a long-term battle with another French chemist, Joseph Proust, on the validity of the law of definite proportions.

A French High School located in Annecy is named after him (Lycée Claude Louis Berthollet).Berthollet married Marie Marguerite Baur in 1788.

[4] Their son, Amédée-Barthélémy Berthollet, died in 1811 of carbon monoxide poisoning via charcoal-burning suicide in which he had recorded his physiological and psychological experiences as a final scientific contribution before losing consciousness and succumbing to the fumes.