Ep. 101: NASA-inspired Aerogel-infused foam

This transcription has been AI generated and therefore may have some inaccuracies.

Ep. 101: NASA-inspired Aerogel-infused foam

The Textile Innovation Podcast speaks to Michael Markesbery, co-founder and CEO at Solarcore and OROS Labs, about scientifically advanced thermal solutions.

WTiN: Hi, Michael, thank you for joining us today on the WTiN podcast. Please, could you tell me about your background and what led you to both Oris labs and solar car?

Markesbery: Hi Abi. Super, super excited to be here, of course. So, I'm Michael, the co-founder and CEO of Oros Labs. We're a material tech company, that create advanced thermal materials. And my story super simple. When I was in college or university, I backpacked across Europe. I ended up climbing my first mountain in the Swiss Alps, which was an incredible experience. But one really big problem was I looked like the Michelin Man on top of the mountain. I remember thinking there had to be a way to cut the bulk out - the layers but still stay warm.

I came back to the US and with a friend Rithvik Vana, now co-founder and CFO of the company, and we started looking into insulation across pretty much every vertical, not just apparel, but buildings and culture and packaging and batteries, you name it. We found that all of these industries were struggling with the same challenge that Rith and I had in apparel. For example, buildings and structures, half the world's energy consumption - trillions of dollars a year goes to producing heat, and the largest consumer of that heats our buildings and structures.

Another way is if you can just improve the insulation in buildings and structures by a couple of percentage points, you can save 10s if not hundreds of billions of dollars of energy consumption a year. But not just buildings, aerospace, batteries, and apparel. Anyway, Rith and I quickly realised, ‘oh, my gosh, the problem isn't apparel, the problem is insulation’. And if we can solve this insulation problem, we can make a really big impact across a variety of different markets. I then got super lucky. I ended up getting a scholarship created by the mercury seven astronauts called the astronaut scholarship. And through the astronaut scholarship, we learned about this amazing material that NASA was using to insulate spacecraft, called aerogel. NASA said aerogel was the best insulation on Earth. And Rith and I, our eyes lit up, and we're like, ‘oh my gosh, just seems like the perfect solution to our problem’. Anyway, that that's how we learned about aerogel. And that's how we started on this journey of launching this material technology company.

WTiN: That sounds fascinating. And could you expand on what the ambitions are and expand little bit further on the gaps in the market that you have observed?

Markesbery: Of course. So, at the end of the day, what we found is every single market needed improved amount of insulation, buildings, for example, as we talked about. Better insulation leads to massive hypothetical increases in energy conservation. Cold chain packaging is another great example. A lot of medication that we ship around - the world is temperature sensitive - generally, you have to keep it really cold or else it goes bad. We throw out $35 billion a year of temperature sensitive medication, just because we can't keep it cold enough for long enough in transport. Better insulation solves that problem. My point being, regardless of if you're talking batteries, or cold chain packaging, or aerospace or defence, buildings and structures, or apparel, they all have this quintessential need for better thermal insulation. So, the goal of wireless labs and the goal of the company is to create advanced thermal materials that allow us to completely transform ventilation across these markets.

WTiN: Amazing and in terms of apparel how does the aerogel infused foam product that you use differ to what is currently on the market, as you mentioned before the whole Michelin Man. Metaphor.

Markesbery: Absolutely. So Okay, we created solid core foam, which is the world's first flexible and durable aerogel composite. Silicone foam really has two benefits over other insulation solutions on the market. The first is thermal value. So low core foam has been tested against over 400 other installations, we have yet to find something more insulating than solar core foam, other than pure aerogel or a vacuum. Those are the two things that will beat it. So that's great, it's really insulating. The real value though, every insulation that's ever existed, has needed bulk, or loft to work. That's why your jackets are super puffy, is you have all this airspace in that installation.

And the second is if you compress that insulation, you lose all the airspace, thereby losing all the thermal value. So, you have this dependency on bulk, or lopped or airspace to work. That's not true with aerogel thereby not true with silicone. What that means is for the first time in history, you can have a thin amount of insulation that gives you meaningful thermal value. That another way, for the first time in history, you don't have to look like the Michelin man to stay warm.

WTiN: And could you explain to that a bit how your solarcore is constructed and how it’s manufactured?

Markesbery: Yeah, of course. So, those that are familiar with the methods of making foam - it's very similar to making bread. So, you start with a liquid batch and you add foaming agents to that liquid bath where those foaming agents act very much like yeast. Then just like with bread, you take that mixture, and you put it in an oven and the outcome is just like bread or a bunch of foam. You then slice that foam to your desired thickness. All we do is as you're adding the foaming agents, you add your aerogel to your desired volume fraction. It's obviously a little bit more scientific than that. But ultimately, that's all we do to make it readable.

WTiN: And could you tell me why you combine the aerogel with the foam? What is the purpose of that?

Markesbery: So, once we learned about aerogel, we started thinking like oh my gosh, okay, so NASA are saying, ‘Hey, this is the lowest thermal conductive solid in existence’, and they're using it in the most extreme environments in the universe space. If it's really that good, how come it's not getting used in all these applications? It makes no sense, right? And then we learned really quickly why aerogel wasn't being used cross functionally. And it turned out aerogel had one major flaw. It was super brittle. If you just poked it, it would shatter into 1,000s of little pieces.

We just became passionate with figuring out how do you take this amazing insulation and make it not brittle, so that you can use it in whatever end application that you want. And what we ended up doing was taking aerogel particles and combining it with closed cell foam. So, you get the flexibility and the durability of that foam. But you get the insulation of the aerogel. So that's why we combined it was to solve the brittle, the brittle challenge. Does that make sense?

WTiN: That does make sense and leads me really nicely onto the next question. Obviously that was a major challenge. But what have been the other challenges you faced while developing the product?

Markesbery: That was certainly the biggest challenge - solving the brittleness. Certainly, as you scale up any new technology, you're running into a bunch of challenges along the way. For us that was probably the biggest, but you know, figuring out the supply chain, establishing a supply chain, quality control, all the normal things with establishing a new product or technology in the market. But certainly the biggest for us was solving the biggest challenge.

WTiN: Of course, and how do you achieve flexibility and make it lightweight?

Markesbery: Yeah. So same way we combined it with the foam. Because again aerogel super brittle. All we did to make it flexible was combine it with something flexible, being foam to make a flexible, durable composite. And then in terms of the lightweight, we just selected a low-density foam that made it about as lightweight as physically possible. Not to mention, aerogel itself is 99% air. It's also the lightest dense solid in existence, and that certainly helped as well.

WTiN: It makes complete sense. And could you delve into a bit about how Oros Labs has used the product in both apparel and footwear?

Markesbery: We’re really fortunate to have a bunch of great partners who are utilising solarcore from across their product categories. Our consumer brand partners include everyone from Helly Hansen to L.L Bean to Cabela's. Oboz, you name it. And they're using it in both apparel and footwear. In footwear, it's being used in the footbed, the toe guard and the upper for installation. And in apparel, it's getting used everywhere, from jackets, to mid layers to leggings, all to provide increased thermal performance without any of the bulk of traditional outerwear.

WTiN: Amazing and obviously, you said you work with partners but have you done any collaborative ranges, and are the products currently commercially available?

Markesbery: Absolutely. So our products are commercially available, you just need to look for solarcore branding physically on the product. And that's how you know it’s solarcore. One of my favourite products that we've made today is Merrell's Thermo Rogue 4 hiking boot. They released this pretty amazing insulated hiking boot, powered by solarcore. When I was growing up my hiking boot was this really bulky boot that I never looked forward to wearing. And Merrill was able to create a new category of insulated hiking boots, powered by solarcore that don't have any of that bulk of the same type of hiking boot that I grew up with, but packs the same thermal performance. So that's really cool. This boot ended up winning gold at ISPO, which is as you know, the largest sports retail show in the world. And since then, Merrill has expanded their line pretty drastically with solarcore from the thermal rogue for, but certainly one of my one of my favourite products that we've made with Merrill today.

WTiN: That's brilliant. And I can probably answer this myself, but how durable is the product?

Markesbery: Great question. So we measure physical durability by abrasion resistance. Solarcore foam, we've tested against a test method called ASTM D4966-22, which measures abrasion resistance, and we've gotten over 45,000 cycles with less than 4% mass loss, all that to say, solarcore foam is predictable.

WTiN: And with sustainability being a huge topic in textile manufacturing, and with noise starting to generate in the footwear sector. How does the solarcore foam fall environmentally?

Markesbery: Great question. So our our philosophy on sustainability is really around a phrase that we call ‘less is warm’. And what we mean by that is a couple of facets, take building  and construction, for example. By using solar core foam, you're able to drastically reduce the energy consumption by 10s, if not hundreds of billions of dollars across all these different building constructions. And if you can reduce that energy consumption, you also reduce the associated carbon emissions that would have been released into the environment should you have used a less efficient installation. So here, really less is warm, is an incredibly true statement.

How that applies to footwear and apparel is back to that hiking boots that I had when I was a kid. If you can drastically reduce the bulk of that boot while maintaining the installation. Yes, you're giving the user a way better experience where they have far more mobility and far more comfort in a cold weather environment. But by reducing the bulk, you are also reducing the material consumption of that product. Well, and if you can reduce the material consumption, that is also an incredible sustainability benefit for the product.

WTiN: Right and moving forward, I can see that Oros Labs achieved an impressive Series B funding round of $22 million. And could you tell me a bit about your investors who they are, what attracted them to the company, and how they will support you?

Markesbery: So, we were really fortunate to raise a really great round, but with some really great venture groups. Our whole philosophy in that round was to bring in value add partners that can help us scale the business, especially for the top line perspective. The round was led by Airbus ventures, which is the venture arm of Airbus, the large Aerospace Corporation.

Also, in the round was a group called REI, one of the largest outdoor retailers in the United States. Goldwin venture arm Goldwin is one of the largest outdoor conglomerates in Japan. They have the licenses in Japan to the North Face and Helly Hansen all that to say we purposely assembled a group of investors around us that have immense experience in the markets that we're going after and get help the scale into those markets.

WTiN: And how do you plan to use the investment?

Markesbery: So really, for us, it's about scaling up the team and operations in order to support and deliver on the demand that's been created around the solar core technology platform.

WTiN: And then my final question is, what is your vision for the company and for the Solarcore product moving forward?

Markesbery: Great question. So, when Rith and I started the company, our vision was pretty simple. We set out to completely transform thermal materials cross functionally, across all these different applications. We talked about batteries and apparel and buildings and cold chain packaging. We're a way away from making that level of impact across all those different markets. So, Rith and I are excited to continue to grow the company and achieve that vision of transforming thermal materials cross functional.

WTiN: That's amazing. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, Michael. It's been really interesting. And I’m really excited to see what comes next from the company.

Markesbery: I'm excited to be here.