Yesterday, a very special and unique event happened in Schw?bisch Hall, Germany. Wilhelm Christ, the inventor of the Airflow? technology, and for many years research director at Germany-based Then Maschinen GmbH, received a medal from the State of Baden-Wurttemberg for his merits regarding economy and technology for the state.

The engineer started his new invention in the late 1970s when the dyeing of a kilogram (kg) of fabric required about 150 liters of water. This challenged Christ, head of the Then research department, to question how the enormous water and energy demand in fabric dyeing could be lowered. In those days, the traditional machinery used water to carry dyes and also to drive the fabric, which resulted in the very high water consumption.

In 1979, Christ began to develop the Airflow technology with Germany-based Hoechst AG. The idea was to replace the fabric transport medium, using steam instead of water, whereby the steam-heated dye liquor was injected into an air-jet nozzle. The next challenge was to efficiently distribute the small amounts of dye liquor and auxiliaries onto the fabric.