In the early 2000s, the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (TTL), in cooperation with other actors, carried out a number of research projects on skin and respiratory diseases in metalworking.
These projects identified the harmfulness of aerosols and health-based exposure limits for several common substances. However, fitting technologies to remove aerosols were not yet available on the market. Because of that, the publications only contain target limit values.
In 2015, a number of large engineering companies contacted TTL, the Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT and Tampere University of Applied Sciences about the air pollution problem. Oil mist separators removed particles from the air from machine tools. However, aerosols were still present in the air, posing a health risk to workers. The companies asked to find out how this problem could be solved. This project led to the development of the AerOff solution.