SAN FRANCISCO—InterContinental San Francisco has partnered with Molekule, a clean air purification company, to bring clean air and better sleep to hotel guests. The 556-room hotel in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood will run a pilot program using Molekule’s devices, which destroy air pollutants at the molecular level, in 30 guestrooms over the next four months to assess sleep quality and allergy symptoms.
InterContinental San Francisco is the first hotel to partner with Molekule to improve sleep quality through indoor air purification.
“We’re constantly focused on providing the best experience for our guests,” said Harry Hobbs, director of engineering at InterContinental Hotels Group. “One area the hospitality industry has spent a great deal of time and effort researching is sleep quality. When we started discussing our renovation and what features we could provide to improve sleep quality, we found that air quality was a factor that, with the right partner, we could control better than we previously had been.”
“The air we breathe, and the tremendous impact that it has on our health, is the opportunity that we saw in the marketplace—yet it’s something many people take for granted,” said Dilip Goswami, co-founder/CEO at Molekule. “Similar to the 50 million-plus allergy sufferers in the U.S., I know from experience how precious the air we breathe is. As a child, I developed severe allergies and asthma that began to prohibit certain parts of my life, and in my case, Molekule was the solution. That’s part of our mission at Molekule: bringing awareness to how critical clean air is and providing the solution people need in order to breathe in healthy air.”
Molekule serves a wide range of clients, ranging from residential to commercial. With air pollution being an issue that affects millions worldwide, Goswami believes there are no limitations when it comes to potential customers for Molekule.
Here’s how it works: According to the company, Molekule’s patented photo electrochemical oxidation (PECO) technology completely destroys pollutants in the air including bacteria, mold, toxic gasses (volatile organic compounds), and other airborne allergens by shining a low energy blacklight on a specially designed electrocatalytic filter, converting pollutants into trace amounts of water and CO2.
“This is a complete shift from the industry standard, HEPA filters, which merely trap some pollutants on the surface of the filter where they continue to survive with the possibility of being released back into the air,” said Goswami.
At the InterContinental San Francisco, the Molekule team has been collecting data for a month, and the feedback from guests has been extremely positive.
“On the data side, we’ve seen a dramatic improvement in sleep quality and reduction in nasal allergy symptoms but, most importantly, guests have enjoyed the experience of sleeping next to Molekule,” said Hobbs.
What made Molekule an ideal partner? Hobbs was impressed by the company’s ability to innovate and solve a particular pain point for hoteliers.
“Molekule has proven to be a leader in clean air purification devices,” said Hobbs. “Their PECO technology is unlike anything we’ve seen in the marketplace and is an ideal innovation for providing the hospitality industry with not just clean air, but a solution for destroying allergens, mold, bacteria and airborne chemicals that affect the way guests sleep.”
By the end of May, this pilot program will have reached more than 1,000 InterContinental San Francisco hotel guests.
Molekule’s future plans include raising awareness of the technology as a viable solution for air-quality concerns. “In terms of expansion, our in-home devices are just the start. We want people to demand cleaner air everywhere,” said Goswami. “So far, we have delivered more than 447 billion cubic feet of cleaned air to date, and have proven to ourselves and others that people value the air they breathe.”
