Select Page
  1. Home/
  2. Com­pa­ny/
  3. Histo­ry/

Histo­ry

ELYSATOR – a Swiss pio­neer in water technology
ELYSATOR – a Swiss pio­neer in water tech­no­lo­gy Hein­rich Ricken­bach, born in Zurich in 1931, com­ple­ted an app­ren­ti­ce­ship as a metal worker and mecha­nic. In 1950, straight after the trai­ning, he foun­ded his first com­pa­ny for the con­s­truc­tion and main­ten­an­ce of faci­li­ties rela­ting to water tech­no­lo­gy. He found tech­ni­cal sup­port with his brot­her, who had com­ple­ted his stu­dies as an elec­tro­nics engi­neer at Win­ter­thur Col­lege. It was reco­g­nis­ed ear­ly on that elec­tro­che­mis­try would play a lea­ding role in the future of “water engi­nee­ring”. It pro­mi­sed, in many cases, to be more eco­no­mic­al and eco­lo­gi­cal than tra­di­tio­nal water che­mis­try. But the begin­nings were dif­fi­cult; eco­lo­gy had not yet been queried and years of rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment pas­sed befo­re the imple­men­ta­ti­on on of the in some cases visio­na­ry ide­as of the two brot­hers. In 1971, with the ELYSATOR® for hea­ting sys­tems, came the first gre­at breakth­rough. Oxy­gen dif­fu­si­on through pla­s­tic tubing beca­me the tech­ni­cal scour­ge of the first gene­ra­ti­on of under­flo­or hea­ting. Che­mi­cal inhi­bi­tors fai­led and the elec­tro­che­mi­cal pro­ce­du­re tri­um­phed. And so the pro­duct gave the com­pa­ny its name: ELYSATOR.
1970 Deve­lo­p­ment of the ELYSATOR®
Foun­da­ti­on of ELYSATOR AG in Zurich by Hein­rich Rickenbach

1988 Reco­gni­ti­on of the ELYSATOR® as ‘sta­te of the art’

1991 Foun­da­ti­on of a sub­si­dia­ry in Germany

1993 Manu­el Ricken­bach takes over the manage­ment of the company

2004 Deve­lo­p­ment and regis­tra­ti­on of PUROTAP®

2010 Aqui­test AG, spin-off of the lar­gest water labo­ra­to­ry for the hea­ting industry

2011 Move to new busi­ness and warehouse pre­mi­ses in Abstatt (Ger­ma­ny)

2013 New buil­ding in Bil­ten (Glar­ner­land)
Deve­lo­p­ment and patenting of SorbOx®

2014 Deve­lo­p­ment of PUROTAP® expert, demi­ne­ra­li­sa­ti­on through hyperfiltration

2016 PUROTAP takes the step towards per­ma­nent moni­to­ring of the sys­tem water

2017 Launch of the PUROTAP lea­der with the paten­ted replaceable car­tridge system
Rolf Frei takes over the manage­ment of the company

2018 Intro­duc­tion of PUROTAP mini with casing, mea­su­ring com­pu­ter for monitoring

2020 50th anni­ver­sa­ry of the company

2021 Intro­duc­tion of the new gene­ra­ti­on of ELYSATOR trio .1
Launch of the aqua-mobil mobi­le fil­ling sys­tem for lar­ge-sca­le projects

2022 Launch of the H2O DESAL® and H2O GUARD® brand
H2O GUARD® 60v indus­tri­al model in full flow or secon­da­ry connection

2023 Intro­duc­tion of H2O DESAL® mas­ter, the alter­na­ti­ve to ion exch­an­ger res­in and
Intro­duc­tion of H2O GUARD® lift, the Body­GUARD for your hea­ting system

2024 Intro­duc­tion of aqua ron­da, the mobi­le trai­ler for the post-tre­at­ment of cir­cu­la­ting water in the cir­cu­la­ti­on pro­cess and intro­duc­tion of H2O DESAL® d‑toc, TOC reduc­tion in hea­ting water, pro­duc­tion of the 50,000th ELYSATOR

2025 The foun­ding com­pa­ny ELYSATOR Engi­nee­ring AG, Switz­er­land splits off defi­ni­tively from ELYSATOR Engi­nee­ring GmbH Germany

Our loca­ti­on
At the begin­ning of 2013, ELYSATOR moved from Wol­ler­au to Bil­ten in the Gla­rus regi­on. The pro­duc­tion and admi­nis­tra­ti­on buil­ding was com­ple­ted in just 8 months. In addi­ti­on to the steel con­s­truc­tion which hou­ses two halls cove­ring 1200 m² for pro­duc­tion and logi­stics, the­re is an adja­cent 3‑storey admi­nis­tra­ti­on buil­ding in a con­ven­tio­nal solid design with a flo­or space of 1‘000 m².

Rolf Frei, 2023: ‘10 years after moving into the pro­duc­tion and office buil­ding in Bil­ten, we are still con­vin­ced that the Swiss loca­ti­on is jus­ti­fied. The last few years have cle­ar­ly shown us that short distances and fast decis­i­on-making pro­ces­ses are an important foun­da­ti­on for a com­pa­ny.
The fact that we have ever­y­thing under one roof — from the idea to the finis­hed device — cha­rac­te­ri­ses us and gua­ran­tees avai­la­bi­li­ty and qua­li­ty. Tog­e­ther with you, we will con­ti­nue to work on inno­va­tions. Our aim is not only to remain the mar­ket lea­der in Switz­er­land, but also to con­ti­nue to grow bey­ond its borders.’

© 2025 ELYSATOR Engi­nee­ring AG
All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer/Privacy Poli­cy