New DESSO AirMaster carpet cleans indoor air

The indoor air quality is often far from ideal, mostly because of the high concentrations of fine dust and particulate matter. This can lead to health problems. While some claim the hardwood is better for people with allergies and asthma, the carpet manufactures challenge that by improving their products. The carpet manufacturer DESSO has introduced a new type of carpet, called AirMaster, specially developed to improve the air quality inside buildings.

AirMaster carpet is eight times more effective in trapping particulate matter than hard floors and four times more effective than a standard carpet. This was the conclusion of a study conducted by the independent German testing institute GUI. This makes DESSO the world’s only manufacturer to offer a product certified with the GUI’s golden logo, which means that the carpet is 80% more effective than hard floors when it comes to trapping particulate matter.

“The carpet significantly reduces the amount of dust and particulate matter that float around indoors. The World Health Organization has warned that it is particularly hazardous to inhale particulate matter,” said Alexander Collot d’Escury, DESSO Chief Commercial Officer. “Miniscule dust particles end up in the lungs, the smallest particles even in the blood stream, and this could have serious consequences for human health.”

The carpet’s ability to trap fine particles doesn’t mean that vacuuming just got more difficult either. The carpet’s ribbed structure features open spaces between the thick and fine yarns to allow for improved air circulation by vacuum cleaners, with tests carried out by Philips Floorcare indicating that over 80 percent of the dust is released by the carpet during vacuuming – a 16 percent improvement compared to standard carpet.

A healthy air quality inside buildings is essential, as most people spend most of the day indoors. In fact, people with a full-time office job spend 1,880 hours a year on average inside their office. The German asthma foundation DAAB has for some time been pointing out that the harmful effects of particulate matter are greatly reduced if carpeting is chosen as indoor floor covering instead of hard floor covering.

This spring the Dutch asthma foundation launched the campaign “Polluted air ruins the lungs” to encourage municipalities to pursue a more active policy against poor air quality, which is partly due to high concentrations of particulate matter. The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science already announced an emergency measure in January to improve the indoor air quality at schools.