Gil Stevens: You are joining us at Filtrex™ to explore a ‘bright future’ for filtration. What do you see as the most exciting opportunities in the field? And the biggest challenges?
Stefan Berbner: With Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), I only see opportunities. People are moving into cities in unprecedented numbers and air pollution around the world is increasing at an alarming rate. Virtually all cities in developing nations, and more than half in richer nations, are blighted by unhealthy air. According to the World Health Organization More than 2bn children now live in places where air pollution exceeds WHO limits. AAF International is a global leader in environmental solutions with the knowledge, experience, and resources to mitigate some of the impact of this.

Urbanization, industrialization, a booming middle class, and the proliferation of smart technologies all represent strong “tail winds” for our industry. Megatrends are underpinning industry trends that will drive increased global demand for filtration products for decades to come. 

GS: What technical innovation in this area excites you the most?
SB: Our future business strategies will be tech driven: big data, digitalization, smart appliances. I feel tougher legislation will impact both Standards & Testing but also be a driver for innovation.

GS: We hear a lot about the increasing capacity of air filters, to a molecular level for example, promising to filter out viruses, VOCs and so on. How likely are we to see a large scale roll out of such technology? Will the air in my car be laboratory standard in 10 years?  
SB: That’s not particularly my area of expertise, but ,yes, I believe it is very likely that we will have these applications available very soon.

GS: Have considerations of more sustainable practices affected your planning, sourcing or production processes? If so, how?
SB: Absolutely yes! Sustainability is key for us and we always  want to offer our customer the best solution, for example lowest cost of ownership, reduced / lowest CO2 footprint etc. you name it. This must always include our full supply chain and needs to have our key suppliers have involved.

GS: What other sessions  on the FILTREX programme are you most looking forward to? 
SB: The first session, Filtration in Mobility, looks particularly interesting      

Dr. Berbner is Chief Operating Officer of AAF Europe (Germany) and is a keynote speaker at FILTREX™, opening the second day's proceedings.

More info about FILTREX™