Air Purifying Carpet Tiles: How Tarkett Desso AirMaster Cleans the Air Beneath Your Feet

The air quality problem hiding in your office

Indoor air quality is one of the most underestimated issues in commercial building management. The air inside offices, schools and public buildings can contain concentrations of fine particulate matter — PM2.5 and PM10 — that are significantly higher than outdoor levels. These particles come from a wide range of sources: traffic pollution drawn in through ventilation systems, printer toner, cleaning products, textiles, and even the occupants themselves.

PM2.5 particles are of particular concern. At 2.5 micrometres or smaller, they are fine enough to bypass the body's natural filtering mechanisms and penetrate deep into the lungs. Long-term exposure is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organisation has established clear guidelines on acceptable PM2.5 concentrations — and many busy offices routinely exceed them.

Hard floors — polished concrete, vinyl, ceramic tile — offer no particulate capture at all. When disturbed by foot traffic or air movement, particles that have settled on a hard floor simply become airborne again. This is where carpet, and specifically AirMaster carpet tile, offers something genuinely different.

How Tarkett Desso AirMaster works

Tarkett Desso AirMaster is not a filter and it does not rely on any chemical treatment or additive. The air-purifying effect comes from the physical structure of the carpet pile itself. The dense, fine yarn construction creates a vastly greater surface area than a hard floor — and fine particles that come into contact with the pile become trapped within it rather than bouncing back into the breathing zone.

Research conducted by Desso in conjunction with TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) demonstrated that AirMaster carpet tiles can capture up to eight times more fine dust particles from the air than hard flooring alternatives, and significantly more than standard carpet tiles. The particles remain trapped within the pile until they are removed by regular vacuuming — at which point they are extracted from the building entirely rather than re-entering circulation.

The result is a measurable, sustained reduction in the concentration of airborne fine particles at breathing height — the level that actually matters for human health.

Why this matters for commercial interiors

For facilities managers and workplace designers specifying flooring for commercial environments, AirMaster offers something that no hard floor or standard carpet tile can match: a quantified contribution to indoor air quality. This has several practical implications.

In office environments, better air quality has been consistently linked to improved cognitive performance and reduced absenteeism. Studies by Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health found measurable improvements in decision-making and response times in environments with better indoor air quality. Specifying AirMaster is not just an environmental decision — it is a productivity decision.

In schools, where children are more vulnerable to particulate exposure and spend long hours in the same rooms, the case for air-purifying flooring is particularly strong. In healthcare environments — GP surgeries, dental practices, therapy rooms — where vulnerable individuals are present and infection control is a priority, reducing airborne particle concentrations is directly aligned with clinical objectives.

And for any commercial occupier with sustainability or ESG commitments, AirMaster's contribution to indoor environmental quality can be documented and reported — a concrete, measurable building performance metric rather than a vague claim.

The AirMaster collections at Fenston Carter

Tarkett Desso produce AirMaster in seven distinct collections, each with its own palette and pile character. All are available to buy online at Fenston Carter with free UK delivery on orders over £250.

• AirMaster Earth AD31 — 17 earthy, grounded colours. The most versatile entry point into the range, suitable for most commercial and public sector environments. From £190 per box.
• AirMaster Sphere AD21 — 18 colours with a distinctive sphere-textured loop pile. A contemporary choice for modern workplace interiors. From £190 per box.
• AirMaster Atmos B747 — 12 colours with an atmospheric textured pile inspired by air and sky. From £198.99 per box.
• AirMaster Reflection AC58 — 9 colours with a reflective patterned pile, suited to premium office and hospitality environments. From £240.99 per box.
• AirMaster Nazca Gold AB47 — 4 premium gold-toned colours for high-specification interiors. From £249.99 per box.
• AirMaster Salina Gold AB46 — 4 warm gold tones, the most refined in the range. From £257.99 per box.
• AirMaster Tierra Gold AB48 — 8 warm terracotta-influenced colours. From £257.99 per box.

What about cleaning and maintenance?

A question that comes up immediately when discussing particle-trapping carpet tiles is whether they become a reservoir of harmful material. The answer is straightforward: regular vacuuming removes the trapped particles entirely from the building. A well-maintained AirMaster floor is not accumulating harmful material — it is actively extracting it from the air and disposing of it through the cleaning process.

Tarkett Desso recommend vacuum cleaning with equipment fitted with a HEPA filter to ensure that extracted particles are not redistributed into the room during the cleaning process. This is standard practice for most commercial cleaning contractors and does not represent a significant departure from normal carpet tile maintenance.

Comparing AirMaster to air purifiers

Standalone air purifiers are increasingly common in commercial spaces, particularly since the pandemic heightened awareness of indoor air quality. AirMaster carpet tiles are not a replacement for air purifiers — they address different parts of the particulate problem. Air purifiers target particles already suspended in the air at a given moment; AirMaster captures particles as they settle toward floor level, preventing resuspension. Used together, the two approaches address the indoor air quality challenge more completely than either does alone.

The practical advantage of AirMaster over standalone purifiers is that the air-purifying function is built into the floor itself. There are no units to install, power, maintain or replace. The floor you were going to specify anyway does the additional work — with no ongoing operational cost beyond the routine cleaning schedule the carpet would have required regardless.

Specifying AirMaster for your project

All Tarkett Desso AirMaster collections are available to order online at Fenston Carter with free UK delivery on orders over £250. If you are specifying for a commercial project and need samples, technical data sheets, or product documentation for a procurement submission, contact us directly — we can turn these around quickly for commercial and public sector clients.

If you are an installer or main contractor looking to include AirMaster in a project specification, we can provide contractor pricing and can discuss project quantities. We work with commercial clients across the UK and are experienced in supporting specification-led procurement processes.

Browse the full Tarkett Desso AirMaster range at Fenston Carter and see all available collections, colours and prices.