An Investigation of Market Scalability for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs') Filtration Systems : A Case Study within Sweden

Abstract: With the need for excellent living standards to escalate day by day, the need to breathe good quality air remains of paramount importance for a prosperous, happy life. The indoor air quality picture is improving decade by decade. However, the importance of maintaining good indoor air quality remains unsatisfactory. Indoor air quality is one of the world’s most significant environmental problems. Statistics states that as of 2017, approximately 1.6 million premature deaths are caused by bad indoor air quality. The majority of these deaths result from the presence of Volatile Organic compounds in the air. VOCs are the common pollutants that are found indoors, which are not only toxic but also dangerous to health on long exposures. Even though several norms are put in place, why is the picture still persistent even after many technological advancements in the industry? This notion of this idea inspired the authors to conduct the current thesis. The thesis is based on a case study at a Swedish Air-cleantech company, Company-X, that developed efficient air filtration technologies to eliminate VOCs from the indoor air. However, for efficient diffusion of the technology, studying the market is of utmost importance. For this, the study is done by qualitative interviewing of professionals from the Swedish air filtration market. The interactions helped the authors to comprehend the more in-depth picture of influencing facets in persistent VOC issues in the indoor airs. Secondly,the meetings guided the authors with the industry choice for efficient technologies to eliminate VOCs from the indoor air. The collected data led to the conclusions that, various actors like awareness and buying decision factors, technologies are involved for VOCs still being a persistent issue in indoor airs. The industry’s awareness regarding Volatile Organic Compounds has been mediocre, and the significant factor for the buying decision is the price. Speaking of the technology, it has been reckoned that Activated Carbon filters are the best and economically efficient technology to eliminated VOCs from the air.