Every day, more than 10,000 liters of air pass through the lungs of every human being on the planet. The quality of the air we breathe makes a huge difference to our overall well being: the World Health Organization's latest report showed that airborne pollution causes 8 million deaths per year. 

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Kimmo Häyrinen, CTO at UniqAir points out / brings up / notes that we are living in an environment where we are surrounded by multiple sources of airborne contaminants:

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“They come from manmade infrastructure, but also from natural sources. Current studies show these pollutants are prevalent indoors, which poses a great risk to our health as we spend up to 80 percent of our time indoors.”

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Traditional air conditioning systems filter air from outside, which leaves the more harmful contaminants generated from inside the building circulating. Atte Kekkonen, Board Director at UniqAir, says that this is an issue has found its time:

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“We are a company specialized in clean air, but of course the pandemic has raised awareness about air contaminants. Our mission is to provide pure, clean indoor air. We can see our solutions at people's homes, in schools, workplaces, bars and restaurants - wherever people go, and during transit between those places as well.”

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UniqAir has been providing indoor air solutions since long before the pandemic, but public health messaging around the importance of proper ventilation has focused attention on where current solutions fall short or even harmful. Häyrinen says: 

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“We believe that nobody would like to breathe processed air if they knew that all these processing air solutions suffer from harmful byproducts. UniqAir is the state of the art passive method: we don't process or alter anything. We just remove bacteria, harmful gases, toxins, and viruses.” 

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This differentiator has been proven by independent third party laboratories and universities, making UniqAir the high water mark for the industry. Häyrinen says that the company's technology partners are required to have the same high level of ethics and a high level of quality as we do.: 

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“We cannot accept any risk for human health because breathing air is so essential. So it cannot be compromised.” 

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One example of successful co-operation with technology partners is related to an implementation of a novel antimicrobial coating. Technology partners M-Filter and Clean Touch Medical (CTM) worked with UniqAir’s development team on a joint project testing novel antimicrobial coatings in air purification. Together they found a wide-ranging solution that could answer many of the issues around indoor air safety. 

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M-Filter, a veteran of the industry, specializes in the non-automotive sector. Kai Liesmaa, CEO at M-Filter, says that they have a long standing relationship with CTM:

“They are known coating experts in the Scandinavian market. When CTM came out with this antiviral coating, we decided quickly with UniqAir that we wanted to use it with filters to find an effective way to knock off viruses from the air.” 

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CTM’s antimicrobial coating is applied to the filter that M-Filter uses in manufacturing of special HEPA filters for UniqAir. Joni Lainisalo, CPO at Clean Touch Medical says: 

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“Our solution helps improve air quality by reducing the amount of harmful viruses and bacteria in the air filtration process.”

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Acknowledging that no one company has all the answers when it comes to creating safer air to breathe, Häyrinen says that UniqAir’s collaborative approach has pushed the envelope in producing commercially available solutions: 

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“As we are proudly the number one choice of industry, we strive to cooperate when we are asked to join research studies led by health authorities, institutes or universities. I think now it's time to harness all this knowledge, to create solutions that really affect the air quality and take action to improve it.”

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Atte Kekkonen says that the needs of customers are pushing the company to continue to improve their offer: 

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“Requirements are changing all the time, as we have seen through this time of pandemic. Through continuous development, we can optimize the solution to provide the best available air quality. In the future, there will be different needs in cities where air pollution is a major health issue. Then of course, in schools.”

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Looking back, Kekkonen says that although the basic technology is the same, the efficacy of the product is streets ahead of where it was. And looking forward, he predicts that the next ten years will continue to see UniqAir innovating and driving change:

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“We have seen that there are lots of different kinds of needs for end users. We will continue developing the services. We will continue developing the product. We have developed it further, and that is what we will continue to do in the future.”

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