Swiss air quality technology company
IQAir is a Swiss air quality technology company, specializing in protection against airborne pollutants, developing air quality monitoring and air cleaning products.[2] IQAir also operates AirVisual, a real-time air quality information platform.[3][4] As of February 2020, it had around 500 employees worldwide, 150 of them in China, and its most important markets were Asia and North America.[1]
History
IQAir was founded 1963 by brothers Manfred and Klaus Hammes, who introduced an air filter system for residential coal ovens in Germany to help reduce black dust build-up on the walls behind ovens.[5] Manfred Hammes, a lifelong asthma sufferer, noticed that the filter reduced his flare-ups during the winter months.
Klaus Hammes continued through the 1960s and ’70s, to adapt the air filter for other heating systems such as radiators, baseboard heating and forced-air heating and cooling systems. In 1982, Klaus Hammes relocated the company headquarters to Switzerland.[6]
In the early 1990s, Frank Hammes, Klaus' oldest son, joined the company and expanded research and development as well as in-house manufacturing. In the spring of 1998, IQAir shipped its first high-performance air purifier from its Swiss factory. In 2001, Klaus Hammes' second son, Jens Hammes, joined the business and helped expand IQAir to Asia and the Middle East.[7]
Products
IQAir currently has products in four product categories, namely air purifiers,[8] HVAC-based air cleaning, air quality instruments and the global air quality information platform AirVisual.
Technology
IQAir employs a wide range of particulate and gas-phase removal technologies in its air purifiers and air filters. The company has been a vocal opponent of ionizing and ozone-producing air cleaning technologies. IQAir’s air quality information platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) to calibrate and validate thousands of governmental and non-governmental air quality monitoring stations.
Company organization
IQAir is headquartered in Switzerland with major operations in Germany, the U.S., and China. Product development is based in Switzerland.[9] As of 2020, manufacturing is based in countries including Switzerland and Southern Germany.[1]
As of 2015, IQAir was family-owned and did not publish concrete information about its revenue or profits.[10]
