It all started in a garage in northern Sweden
When most 16-year-olds were playing video games, Johan Lundberg was in his dad's garage building a machine that could remove bad odours.
Every spring, when the family opened the door to their summer house in the Luleå archipelago, they were met by the same stuffy, damp smell.
They cleaned. They aired it for weeks. But the smell never went away.
Johan knew that cities had been using ozone to purify water since 1906.
He started to wonder: what if you could do the same thing with air?
The machine that laid the foundation for Ozoneair
With the help of a chemical engineer, he built a prototype – and took it directly to his summer house.
After two hours, the smell was gone.
That machine – which today is known as Ozoneair Clean – became the start of Ozoneair.
Since then, the technology has been developed, refined, and improved.
Today, over 100,000 Ozoneair Clean units have been sold.
Sweden's best-selling air purifier
Johan's next invention became Sweden's best-selling air purifier.
He had long suffered from severe allergy symptoms. Stuffy nose. Sore throat. Stinging eyes.
During a particularly intense pollen season, he tested air purifier after air purifier. They all promised relief. None of them worked.
He realised that many traditional air purifiers function like large vacuum cleaners. They capture dust – but that is not enough for people with allergies.
– I spoke with an allergy researcher who explained that many symptoms are caused by gases that ordinary filters cannot capture. The most harmful allergens are also so small that they pass straight through the filter.
Purify has been developed in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology and with support from the EU's innovation fund, and is based on many years of scientific research.
After over 100,000 units sold, Purify became Sweden's best-selling air purifier.
Selected among Sweden's foremost entrepreneurs
Johan was selected for Prince Daniel's Fellowship – a prestigious program where only 18 entrepreneurs are handpicked from all over Sweden by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). During the program, Magnus Nicolin, Chairman of Munters, served as his mentor.
