The history of the Rothemühle brand starts with the acquisition of a stove pipe factory in the village of Rothemühle, Germany, in 1936. The initial entry of Apparatebau Rothemühle Dr. Brandt & Co. in the local trade register is dated the 8th of January 1937. Right from the start, the engineers and specialists dedicated themselves to the planning and manufacture of heat exchangers and air/flue gas ducts for steam generators. In 1951, Apparatebau Rothemühle began constructing electrostatic precipitators. In 1953, the age of the Rothemühle air preheater with stationary heating elements and rotating hoods began. At the same time, Rothemühle participated in the founding of Brandt Engineering (Pty.) Ltd. in Johannesburg.

As early as 1962, license agreements were concluded with companies in Japan, France, Great Britain, and the US. In 1967, pioneering work was carried out on methods for the separation of sulfur dioxide and residual particulate matter from combustion waste gases. From the middle of the 1970s, the first rotor heat exchangers for industrial plants and refineries were available in the form of LUGAT compact heat exchangers. Since the 1980s, the delivery range has been enhanced by our deNOx and deSOx gas preheaters.

In the mid-1990s, Apparatebau Rothemühle was able to acquire the specialist filter company Walther & Cie AG, based in Cologne. At roughly the same time, they opened a Polish office in Warsaw, which was responsible for the engineering and design of Rothemühle electrostatic precipitators. In 1999, Apparatebau Rothemühle became part of the Belgian Hamon Group, but was then sold to Balcke-Dürr GmbH, based in Ratingen, Germany, in 2003. Following this change of ownership, the subsidiary in Rothemühle was able to further globalize and develop its business.

In 2004, Balcke-Dürr Wuxi Ltd. was founded in order to produce their own heating elements and coat them in a special enamelling facility for use in deSOx gas preheaters. In 2006, engineers in Rothemühle succeeded in planning and designing one of the largest ever air preheaters for a German hard coal power plant, with a diameter of 21 m and a rotating total weight of 1300 tons. Further systems in this size range followed for several new hard coal power plants in Germany and the Netherlands. When planning these new power plants, the engineers were also increasingly faced with the challenges of new environmental regulations. Due to their experience and reference projects, they were easily able to comply with the required clean gas dust content for every single supplied electrostatic precipitator. In June 2019, Balcke-Dürr Rothemühle GmbH was founded. Its core business is providing national and international service for all Rothemühle products as well as planning and setting up new regenerators and filters.

In 2021 Balcke-Dürr Rothemühle GmbH was acquired by Howden. The Rothemühle product range reflects 80 years of development and is an important part of Howden's offerings for heat exchangers.