Episode #86 - The Science Behind ALUULA with Tyler Cuthbert

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. This week we have our second episode of the ALUULA miniseries. We discuss the science of the ALUULA process with our Chief Scientific Officer Tyler Cuthbert. It's an exciting episode as we learn a lot about what goes into the making of these composite textiles and how their revolutionary science has enabled ALUULA as a company to perform very well in their

[00:00:24] diverse industries from water sports to outer space. We hope you enjoy this episode. Last week we had our first episode of the miniseries. We talked with Dave Westwood, the Director of Sales and Marketing. We learned all about ALUULA as a company and how it all began from their home in Victoria, BC. Next week on our third and final episode of the series, we put it all together. We talk with Dave Westwood and

[00:00:51] Tyler Cuthbert again, but also invite Paulette Novotna, Professional Kite and Wing Foiler, and Klaus Voigt, the Production and Marketing Manager at Duotone. So make sure to listen to next week episode and if you haven't had the opportunity to listen to last week's, give it a listen. Now, I want to take this opportunity to thank our team for making this show a reality. We have Frank that helps out with media and consulting, we have Matthias on guest relations, and we have Stefan on audio mastering.

[00:01:21] A big thank you guys as a lot of work goes into each and every episode. Next, I'd like to say a big thank you to our partners and sponsors. Visit foillifepodcast.com forward slash sponsors to see who supports us behind the scenes. Lastly, make sure to check out our upcoming trips on our website. Visit foillifepodcast.com forward slash trips and make sure to book your seat for our Bonaire

[00:01:48] Wing Foil Adventure. Now I hope you enjoy the show. Welcome to the Foil Life Podcast, where we talk about foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy these great sports. It all leads into the story about how I got introduced and hooked up with Alula. So does it? What is that story?

[00:02:16] So I came back from Switzerland. I was working in Zurich and we have a wind sports society here that runs off of an island. Yeah, the Spit, or used to be the Spit. The Spit? Yeah. Pepehim. Yeah. And my girlfriend is on the board of directors, so she ran events. And one of the

[00:02:39] events was with Alula and Ocean Rodeo, because at the time they were the same thing, or at least a connected company. And a bunch of the guys that were in the company at that time, we were sitting on the beach talking about material science. Because I was quite interested in Alula at that point. It's a normal conversation. It's quite interested. Right? Yeah. And I think they were quite surprised. They were like, oh, what do you, how do you know so much

[00:03:09] about all these things? And it came up obviously that I'm a synthetic polymer chemist and interested in textiles and membranes and whatnot. So they were talking about some of the things they were experiencing. And then, yeah, I was like, it might be a fixable problem. And one thing led to another, started doing some contracting for them, and moved into a full-time role. Come on. That's kind of cool.

[00:03:39] Yeah. Yeah. It kind of aligns. Everything kind of lines up and you never know where you're going to meet someone that all of a sudden there's a good connection and agreement on vision. And alignment of what you want to do and how you want to do it. And yeah, just kind of ended up working out well. Yeah. Synchronicities. I guess that stuff does happen everywhere. And well, hey Tyler, thanks for joining us on our second episode of this Alula mini series. Today, we're going to get the fun

[00:04:08] of geeking out a little bit more on the fibers. We introduced Alula with Dave on our first series. And then our third one, which is coming up soon, will be with Paola and Klaus also of Duotone. So they're going to be able to let us know some of the sport application and how they did their early R&D. So we're looking forward to that episode as well. But you're sitting there in Squamish,

[00:04:33] one of the most beautiful places in Canada. What got you interested in what you're doing? So you're like a, what was it? Poly something chemist? Yeah. I'm a, I'm a synthetic polymer chemist. There you go. That's what it is. So yeah, I have my, my PhD in chemistry, uh, and most of that early research, like my PhD was focused

[00:04:57] around, uh, designing and then synthesizing new monomers and polymers. So kind of the, the actual polymer itself. So how do you, how do you take a rational design of something and translate that into a macro function of the polymer? Um, and in academia, this is pretty, you know, we're going for more advanced functions that are pretty far out kind of like cutting edge,

[00:05:24] leading edge type of, of responsiveness or autonomous features or, uh, activity. Um, and we would translate that into kind of fundamental understanding of how you build that and what's important to put in there to get a property out. So typically I would say I'm a polymer chemist that focuses on structure property relationships of that, uh, molecule or polymer.

[00:05:50] So now for all of us lay people, that means, uh, yeah. So that means like I, I design the, the, I'm a designer of polymers, I guess. Uh, so I have that molecular structure and I'm tinkering with, uh, how the design of the atoms are put together in the molecule and how that molecule is put together

[00:06:15] in a polymer. Um, and that makes up your total material. So, you know, in, uh, there's a lot of other, other markets that kind of have this understanding already, like ski boots, people will talk about your different types of, you know, grill image, polyurethanes, uh, polyesters. Um, you know, these are all at the chemical level, slightly different. And that results in a different

[00:06:40] property, uh, in the bulk form. Um, and, and if you are able to design at that level, then you can, you can tune or, or modify the property of whatever it is you're building of. Um, so whether that's ski boots or, or in our case, it's composite textiles, uh, and then how that translates into the end product.

[00:07:06] Uh, and that's where I got interested in, uh, after my PhD into my postdocs and then into my, uh, future industrial, um, research career where, you know, it's actually trying to take something that, you know, how it functions at the polymeric level, uh, or the molecular level and translate that into, uh, an actual response or change in a product. Or, um, I used to work on clothing,

[00:07:36] uh, membranes. So responsive membranes, uh, for outerwear was quite interesting for me. I had a, a postdoctoral fellowship that was focused around that, um, did some sensing within clothing. So how do you actually create a yarn with a special polymer that then allows you to sense motion, uh, and extract 3d motion out of your clothes. That was what I was doing in, in Zurich. Um,

[00:08:03] and then, yeah, that was like really kind of, you know, try to push that area, uh, further translating into industry at that point was it's, it's quite early in terms of what kind of technology that some people are doing it, but finding that value proposition for that in the market, sometimes, you know, it takes a little while to figure exactly what that should be used for, uh, at least in the beachhead market or like the first market. And then at that point I was,

[00:08:32] I was really interested in getting into industry and, you know, seeing something translate out of academia, say, and into, into the market and sustainability and, and how you use synthetic materials was becoming very popular, uh, obviously as a, as a problem. And so I, I was quite interested in using my skills as a synthetic chemist to first understand, you know, the benefits of synthetic

[00:08:58] materials. So instead of just going to a bio-based material or a biodegradable material or something that's naturally produced, uh, you can get some advantageous property properties out of a synthetic material, and then you have to figure out how to deal with that material if you're going to use it in a product. So then what's the end of life situation and, and how do you bring that back?

[00:09:24] So it's not actually going to landfill. And that's actually where we initially started with Alula and myself was, you know, addressing these, these concerns and these issues and these ways forward. So how do we, how do we advance this and be leaders in taking what is a synthetic material, which is polyethylene and translating that into a really, you know, more sustainable approach of dealing with that synthetic material. Cause that's one thing that's on,

[00:09:54] that's on their website that they state, right? Like almost all fully recyclable. Yeah, basically everything but GC 82 or gold is, uh, is recycled ready. So it's made out of recyclable polymers, uh, no adhesives. So this allows you to then, you know, recycle it in,

[00:10:18] in different pathways. So there's, um, mechanical recycling, or you could call it like trying to upcycle, or it would end up being down cycling or even cycling where you're taking that material and you're trying to move it into a new product. Um, and you're trying to use that, that materials properties to be beneficial in a new way. So you can create some value. And then there's chemical recycling where you're actually taking that polymer and you're trying to bring it all the

[00:10:46] way back to its precursors, to its starting materials. And that's original polyethylene is, is ethylene. Right. And so if you can do that, then you, then you close the loop and you have a, a system that has a sustainable source of raw material and product. So, um, you think about it that way. And, and, and different avenues and different markets will value different ways to recycle.

[00:11:11] Um, there are some markets that can use mechanical recycling effectively or, or trying to, um, for us, because we use ultra high molecular polyethylene, uh, that means we need, uh, chemical recycling if we're going to actually recycle everything, um, back to in like actually take our product and make it fully circular. So, uh, ultra high typically, and will need, uh, pristine

[00:11:40] inputs. So you can't really get that from our recycled product. So that means we need to be involved in both pathways, which, which is what we're, what we're doing. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. So for those out there who have just, and we're taking it right down to the basics who have just either seen or heard of a Lula in their kites, their wings, um, even at sailing, let's, can we give a brief overview of what it is? And I know you guys are working on a bunch of different materials. There's

[00:12:08] stuff in space, there's stuff absolutely everywhere. Uh, so really interested and curious to learn more about all of that. Sure. Yeah. So the difference really, uh, you know, moving forward in a Lula is that we eliminate the use of adhesives in what is typically a laminate structure. So a layered structure of, uh, different materials. So, um, in a lot of the other,

[00:12:37] you know, Dacron obviously in wind sports is kind of the standard or was the standard of, of, uh, what was used in say leading edge material. And, you know, this is polyester, so polyester fiber, and then it has some resin or some matrix associated with it. And it's not the same material. Um, and so typically two materials that aren't the same chemically, um, don't always like to interact

[00:13:06] that well together. If they're the same material, typically they will like to interact, uh, together. Um, that being said, you can't always take two materials and just put them side by side, like we can with anything, um, around us and have them stick together. So you need usually some adhesive and that allows you to then create layered structures and layered structures have benefit because you can, you can take the advantageous properties of each of those layers and combine

[00:13:34] them to get something, you know, a better than the sum of the, or the sum of the parts is better than the single component. Um, and in this, you know, we took this idea and, you know, the idea was, okay, we need, we need something lighter, uh, and we needed to have, you know, better properties associated with that. So the lightest material from a density perspective in, in polymers at least is polyethylene. Uh, so the density is,

[00:14:04] is less than a gram per centimeter cubed. And so this allows you to have a certain amount of material in a certain volume. So because it's the lightest, if you have the same materials and the same volume, polyethylene is always going to be lighter. So that's the first part. Second is then, okay, if you are lighter, then you usually you're giving off some property or you're, you're making a copper. Um, yeah,

[00:14:34] a compromise to, to something now, interestingly, the way that polyethylene can be made is you can make polyethylene extremely long. It's a simple polymer. It's just carbon chains with some hydrogens off those carbons. So no, no extra chemistry around there that, that causes problems with say packing or, or interaction. So you can make those chains really long and that's ultra high. So ultra high is where

[00:15:03] you, you make this chain, you know, very, very long. And then when you process it the right way, all of those chains kind of line up and the impact of that is you get a material that's really strong relative to its weight. So you're taking advantage of, um, the interaction between the polymer chains and then the length of that polymer to induce a property that all of a sudden is, uh, not a

[00:15:30] compromise. So you're making material that's really light and really strong relative to its, its weight. Um, and that's ultra high and it's ultra high molecular weight polyethylene is pretty popular. Um, it's used in a variety of products. Uh, and then what makes a Lula different is that we don't use adhesives when we create our composites, uh, or our composite textiles. So

[00:15:56] basically we, we call it fusion. Uh, and what it is, is you're taking all these polyethylenes and you're combining them in a way where you, you don't require adhesives to start creating that material stack up. Uh, and what this allows you to do is to eliminate a failure mode that typically

[00:16:18] comes with adhesives. Uh, and, and usually adhesives have problem with moisture and UV and they degrade over time. Whereas if you're creating these, these connections between the materials that you're putting together at the polymeric level, then all of a sudden you don't require the adhesives. Um, so it results in, in a product that's lighter, uh, because we use ultra high in there. It's,

[00:16:47] it's quite strong, uh, relative to its weight. And, and because we're only using polyethylene, it's, it's obviously very light. So you kind of get the best of, of all worlds. Uh, and, and then it's just all, all how you put it together and, and, and what you use and, um, what property you want to get out. So a lot of smart stuff happens.

[00:17:13] There's a, there's a lot of, a lot of things that go into it. Yeah. It's, but it's interesting. It's, and from a chemist perspective, yeah, from my perspective, I, I don't, so previously I, I would be able to change a lot of the chemistry to get a property out, right? The, the big challenge for us is that we only use polyethylene. So we, we have a limited amount of, of, uh,

[00:17:37] uh, tunability in our material yet. We can still tune it to get a bunch of different properties. Um, depending how we put it together, how we manufacture it. It's all, it's all unique in terms of what we can output and, and we're still pushing the bar. That's the thing is we've realized that there's, there's, there's ways to go upwards from where we're at right now. And we're attacking that at the moment. So for, let's break it down even further for the basics. So let's say I see my

[00:18:06] wing or my kite on the beach, it's yellow. Okay. We got that. There's also strands within that yellow. It looks like there's multiple layers of stuff. It looks like there's a bottom sheet, there's middle strings and then there's a top sheet. So can we just break that down just so for basic understanding of what's going on there in that gold? Yes. The gold. Okay. So the gold, gold's a little, a little unique. Uh, it's not all polyethylene. And so the strands that you see on the

[00:18:35] inside are going to be ultra high molecular polyethylene. So that's, that's the core you would say. And that's where most of the strength is coming from. Um, so, you know, the breaking strengths of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene are, are really high, uh, for the weight of the material. And so when you include it in there, you know, it, it takes a lot of that load and that's why you're able to

[00:19:00] eight to 12 times stronger than steel or something, or for its weight. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it depends on, I guess, what grade of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene you're using. And so there's not just one ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. You can also tune that ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. So depending on how many units you have in a polymer, uh, and that molecular weight. So how many grams per mole that, that polymer is. So if anyone knows chemistry, that's kind of the,

[00:19:28] the size of the polymer that we're, that we're creating or we're using, uh, ultra high molecular weight is going to be, you know, a hundred thousand units to say three or 400,000 units of ethylene. And so that's usually a molecular weight of, you know, anywhere from three to 6 million grams per mole. Um, whereas, you know, you have, uh, something that would be common that everyone would know,

[00:19:57] uh, like water is, um, oxygen and two hydrogens. So, uh, you know, a gram spremol is going to be 18 grams per mole. So, um, that's, that's quite small. So you can imagine the difference in size of, of those molecules, um, relative to, uh, ultra molecular weight polyethylene. And so the inside of that material is,

[00:20:22] is the strands are obviously the ultra high. And then, um, in gold, we've got the core and the core is going to be those strands combined with some other type of polyethylene. Okay. And, and that, that matrix that we have of polyethylene in there is, is unique to gold and it's unique to each product.

[00:20:47] And that allows us to get the property that we want in terms of mechanical performance, which then translates into say stiffness and, um, how it responds, uh, in the material. The transition to ARIS graph light and DER light for the, the, basically the iteration outwards is, is where we don't use any of that polyamide layer. We use other things, uh, that allow,

[00:21:17] uh, UV stabilization, even though polyethylene itself is, is relatively UV stable. Um, that goes into the chemistry of, of what's in there in the, in the polymer. Um, but that way we have, you know, a material that, that doesn't have, um, that doesn't really have any, any adhesive in it. So gold has a little bit of adhesive, uh, ARIS, DER light and graph light don't use any adhesive in it. So it, and it made purely of

[00:21:46] polyethylene. So a little bit different, um, and a little bit different properties as well. So they all, they all respond a bit differently depending on, on what we put in there. So now comparing, like we talked a little bit about Dacron or like traditional canopy materials, because we're in the wind sports industry, what kind of things would people see that would be different comparative to those traditional, let's say materials that have been around for a long time?

[00:22:11] Dacron is about 160 grams per square meter. Uh, if you move to, um, gold, so that would be the earliest transition over it's 82 grams per square meter. Um, and, and that obviously allows you to drop a lot of weight. Uh, so if you use it as a drop in material, uh, first of all, you're just gonna, you're gonna drop a ton of weight. And even if you designed it in the same way, you know, you're still

[00:22:38] getting the same type of performance out of there, but gold is going to have more stiff properties. It's definitely stronger. Um, so you can start to design in a different way with gold. Um, a lot of people I don't think did initially, you know, we, we did kind of more drop in replacement and that, and that's an easy way to get it into the market where, you know, it's cutting it, you know,

[00:23:01] substantially in weight. So all of a sudden you, you take your kite and you drop a ton of weight because that's where most of the weight's coming from in that leading edge. Um, and, and that's, that's really nice for, for some, um, performance attributes of that, of that kite. Um, you know, playing around with the stiffness, uh, of the material. So how that, how that wing or how that,

[00:23:28] excuse me, kite responds, you know, is dependent on, uh, that leading edge diameter. So you have some hoop stress and you have some, you know, tube inflated tube, uh, that is at some PSI, and that gives that leading edge inflated edge, some stiffness associated with that. So when you put a material in

[00:23:52] that can hold or is stiff in itself, that will change how that leading edge response. Now I don't particularly design this aspect of translation to the kite design. Um, you know, we have, we have some, some people on staff that, that can translate this out and understand how, when we manipulate the material properties, it then affects the design, um, of that, of that product.

[00:24:21] But essentially if you can create a material that can hold more load, um, then you can start changing tube diameters. Uh, you can start using it in different ways to create those kites and wings, which then allow you to kind of modify the performance of how that, how that kite and wing, um, fly and respond. Um, and so if you make a, you know, and when we transitioned to like AERIS,

[00:24:48] which is, which is our, you know, our category that we, we supply to wind sports, um, you know, we have some new materials that are extremely stiff. So for the weight, uh, they actually have really good, uh, stiffness in the warp, weft and bias. So kind of in three directions across there, uh, when you would use it in your leading edge. So, you know, if that then translates to a really stiff

[00:25:17] leading edge, then you can start playing around with diameter to then see how that translates into the, uh, kite performance. Um, and, and this, you know, this is, this is something that, that I think will come eventually as well as where our materials, especially AERIS are, are weldable. They don't require any adhesives to weld. They can weld directly to themselves. So you can start to

[00:25:44] modify actually how that leading edge is designed. So instead of having kind of the, the sections that go along the leading edge, you can start to play around with how that could be designed to create a response in the tube form that is complementary to the material properties of the composite textile. So how stiff it is, how light it is, how it responds to stress. Um,

[00:26:10] playing with our side, with shape, with everything from there is you can actually take AERIS or different kinds of those materials, not just use gold, but then you can play with weights as well. Right. So like you can go like, yeah. Heavier. Yeah. So a lot. Exactly. And, and they, they match together. So that's the other thing is you, you don't, you're not bound by only using one material with one

[00:26:36] material because they're all polyethylene. You can mix and match as well. Yeah. Along that leading edge, depending on what properties you want. So wing tips, obviously you want a little bit of a different response than, you know, that center section, which you may want really stiff. Um, so it's, it's just depending on what that designer is trying to, to get from, from that kite. I I'm a kiter, so I was talking with kites, but, um, you know, and so, you know, when, when you start talking to

[00:27:05] designers and you can be like, okay, how do we, how do we get the responsiveness that you want out of the kite or the, the performance out of the kite, depending on what stack up of our materials that you could use in, in different areas. And that does happen. You know, the wing tips definitely can use different materials than that, that center, um, leading edge or the strut or, um, even the canopy material that, you know, we've been, we have been testing, you know, using a Lula as a canopy,

[00:27:34] which then allows you to really, you know, combine all those materials in unique ways because of welding, um, and the way that we can weld our materials together. Uh, yeah, it's, it, there's a lot to kind of unpack and push forward in terms of how we develop and then how that translates into an actual design in a, in a kite or a wing. That kind of takes me to two questions is like,

[00:28:01] is there any sewing obviously going on or, or is it that leading edge, like getting connected to the canopy? Is that being welded or like, how are all these different kinds of materials getting put together? Are they going to be able to combine a gold with an Aris with something else and just weld it together? So gold, uh, no. So gold kind of on its own, uh, typically would be because it was built as

[00:28:27] a drop in replacement and, and it is, you know, um, it does have good performance in it and it is, you know, what kind of changed that or got Alula into this industry in terms of, uh, making it revolutionary. Um, and it's, it's usually sewn. So, and even all of our other materials can be sewn as well. Um, the, the transition can go, you know, we, we can make sewn seams. We can make, uh,

[00:28:53] seams that use PSAs, pressure sensitive adhesives, and then you can, you can go to a fully welded seam that actually doesn't require any extra material if you don't need it or design it that way. Uh, and then you can also use our material as tape as well. If you need to reinforce that area with welding, um, you can do a combination of them all as well. So there, there's nothing to say that you can't, uh, weld and sew or weld and, um, or PSA and weld. Although I don't think people typically

[00:29:23] do that usually they're sewing and welding. Um, and yeah, you, it depends on what property you want out of that seam, but when you start to weld Alula together, uh, usually seams can be thought of as a, or they often are thought of as a weak point, um, because you're connecting two things and you've got this reliance on maybe stitching to go through and it's going to add weight if you want it to be burly

[00:29:49] enough. Uh, but interestingly, when we weld, you know, we can, we can achieve, you know, the same strength of, uh, our material properties through welding. So without even needing sewing, we can, we can translate some of these properties so that our weld is actually not always the weak point. It can be sometimes even stronger than the material depending on how we create that seam. Cause that's one major question that a lot of us have obviously is longevity, durability,

[00:30:19] stretch and flex. Cause the early versions of wings, I know kites are a little bit different because there are so further away, but the early versions of wings were bagging out and the wing tips were flexing in very early. If you used your wing quite a bit in one season, the wing was almost done. So all of us now are fascinated and curious about can let's say an heiress material with different materials that you guys have there improve the longevity, improve the UV, improve the performance of

[00:30:47] that wing. So we can have, I can enjoy it longer. Yep. And you know, our, our durability aspect is really going to be primarily at least initially focused on adhesive or the lack of adhesive use in eras. Um, because then you eliminate that pathway of degradation or, um, failure, right? So as soon as you eliminate that all of a sudden you now have, uh, a material that has a kind of another standard or

[00:31:17] level of durability associated with, um, yeah, it coming apart, it, it breaking down. Um, and then the welding part is, is very interesting because it's a very accessible welding temperature as well, because it's polyethylene. So it's, it has a melt temp that's lower than, um, polyesters and polyurethane. So, uh, it's a little bit more accessible to, to weld. Like I know a lot of

[00:31:45] Yeah, to weld yourself. That stuff. Yeah. They're, they're coming out with windsurf sales that are, that are welded. And so I know that's the future, but definitely curious. Okay. Yeah. And then, you know, you could technically now, you know, this is, this is always one that's difficult. You want to make sure everyone's doing things correctly, but you can, if you have a failure at home, like you can technically, uh, uh, repair yourself. That's kind of an attraction for

[00:32:11] me is that you can really increase the durability, durability and length of time that you can use that product. If you can continually repair it and actually make those areas that have failures stronger than where they initially started. Um, you know, if you start putting a lot of patches on everywhere, like, yeah, you're going to increase the weight a little bit and it might modify a little bit of the performance and that's something, you know, whatever we can deal with at some point, but it

[00:32:36] will allow you to increase the, like the time that you can use your product. Um, and yeah. And, and because it's, it usually has pretty high tear resistance. Um, you know, even if you get a puncture or uh, you know, a cut somewhere in your, in your Lula material, it usually doesn't propagate or really doesn't propagate because it's very difficult to actually, uh, tear that material

[00:33:02] further. So, um, it's kind of nice in that way where it's not just gonna, you know, have a, have an explosion of your, of your gear that sometimes, um, in cutting especially. Yeah, definitely. Like you, you don't know. Yeah. And that's not a fun swim home, especially in that cold water in, uh, in Squamish for sure. It's just chilly. All right. So repairs, i.e. repairs then are coming a long way in ease of repairs, uh, longevity. Obviously we just mentioned that's

[00:33:31] coming a long way and then height design wing design, you're able to play with flex and the different, and then go further down that rabbit hole with less glues. There's less things that are going to break down. Um, so that's fascinating as well. So I know then Dave went a little bit into the factory isn't actually is in Victoria, BC. Yeah. Yeah. Our, our factory is in Victoria and we manufacture everything, uh, in that, in that location, which is, uh, yeah, unique, definitely Canadian company

[00:34:00] there. Yeah. That's amazing how you're able to keep that and then employ people at home rather than sending that elsewhere. Um, I know that gold only comes in yellow because that's just how that's made. I've learned that do the other fabrics that you guys use that have, like I just, uh, Dave mentioned there was a, like a space habitat. I looked that up as well, which is pretty fascinating. So you

[00:34:22] get your product is there. Um, how did that come to be? Obviously your job is to continuously push the envelope, right? So once you have one product designed, you're going to continuously see what else what other, um, materials you can design. That's kind of what you guys do in the background, right? Yeah. R and D wise, you know, we're, we're trying to figure out where our current materials can also be

[00:34:50] valuable. So there's other markets that might have value in, in the type of properties that, uh, these materials have that initially have seen, you know, use at wind sport, um, you know, expanding into performance outdoor, uh, commercial industrial applications, uh, inflatable solutions. Um, and then, you know, internally in R and D then it's, it's kind of understanding where the limit of that

[00:35:15] current material lies and how do we then improve that? So how do we keep pushing that bar upwards in terms of, uh, uh, durability, uh, stiffness strength? Um, when you start to introduce, uh, properties where people have, uh, I guess the material respond differently in the working range of that material. So often, you know, a lot of our materials here, here, there are the high breaking strength

[00:35:42] and that's, that's really good. Cause it can, in an inflated, that's really important because you want to make sure that it can hold a certain amount of, uh, stress when it's, when it's inflated. Um, but in different applications, you know, the actual working range of that material, the, the feel, the stiffness or the Young's modulus is, is also quite important. So how do you, how do you modify that to have a material that, um, feels good? So in performance outdoor, you know, there has to be,

[00:36:11] uh, some aspect of feel associated with that rather than, you know, a super crunchy material that may, that may not be, um, highly attractive. Uh, how do you introduce color? So aesthetics are important and you kind of mentioned that. So, you know, currently I, you know, black, white, and clear, uh, we do silver. There's a few different base colors that we typically play in. Um, and then,

[00:36:40] you know, some, some R and D side is on how do we, how do we start playing around with the aesthetics of the material? How do we start to introduce color? Um, and how do we do that in a way that, uh, that's not changing the performance, right? So we, we always want to couple of this, if we're going to improve, uh, performance and we can at the same time improve aesthetics, that's great. Um, but we're always going to try to improve performance as our baseline, because we are a performance composite textile.

[00:37:08] So, so the three of them for wind sports that we're looking at more, so are Eris, Eris X, and then gold, but then your graph light and Duralite applications are different. Graph light's going to be kind of performance outdoor. It's used a lot in backpacks. Um,

[00:37:29] and it has a nice feel to it. Um, and relative to the backpack fabric, it's quite lightweight and it's weldable. So, uh, you know, uh, our backpack fabrics are anywhere from 52 GSM to 98 GSM. Uh, whereas, you know, other fabrics are going to be 200 plus grams per square meter. If you want to

[00:37:56] kind of a burly material, um, you know, a hundred to 200. So we're definitely on the lighter end of all of those and we'll, we're weldable. So as soon as you take a, you know, a design and you translate that into a backpack and you remove all the seams or you create the seams that are actually stronger, uh, than a sewn seam, then all of a sudden it becomes, um, yeah, attractive for,

[00:38:19] for kind of reducing weight further and further while still having the durability of the ultra-high molecular weight is often used in like bearings. Um, so it has good wear resistance associated with it. Um, and so this allows you to then have some durability associated with that, um, inclusion

[00:38:46] of that material. Then when you go into Durlite, uh, Durlite's definitely our beefiest material and it's our most durable for sure, which essentially is why it's called Durlite. Um, you know, and they're, um, just over a hundred GSM to just over 200 GSM is kind of our, our heaviest, uh, Durlite. And those definitely have the best abrasion resistance, um, puncture resistance,

[00:39:12] tear resistance, that kind of stuff, but they're definitely heavier, um, than, than AERIS and Graflite. Looking at your space applications, I know here you got max space and you got your thin red line. Um, is there anything from there that you can comment on, on A, what it's like to kind of work with those different industries? Um, uh, yeah, there's not too much I can talk about in terms of like development. Um,

[00:39:37] but it's interesting, you know, working with those companies that are trying to push the boundaries of, of how materials are used in different locations and environments. And it's a, it's a totally different, uh, way to work with a material. You know, we, they all like the base fundamentals of what Alula is, which is durable, light, strong, uh, and you know, it has no adhesives associated with it

[00:40:03] and it's weldable. So, you know, this allows a lot of industries to use these kind of base core, uh, values to build unique things that they would otherwise build with, you know, similar materials throughout, actually, you know, everyone's using textiles to build these things in some scenarios. Uh, but you know, our properties in our construction and welding that's capable, you know, it opens up opportunities to really reduce weight in a lot of the applications while

[00:40:32] still retaining the strength and the durability needed, um, for those applications. So it's kind of analogous, but you know, they just, they all work a little differently. So you have to, to be a little nimble in terms of understanding what they're looking for and, and what they're, what they want out of their product. Yeah. And for those at home who are just listening in, you should go to get max space.com and just check out, uh, this little space habitat.

[00:40:58] Yeah. It's kind of finding uses in a, in a bunch of different areas and it's still, we're still expanding and we're still finding areas that, that we can, we can work well in and we, and we provide value to as well. So, um, yeah, it's finding, finding those customers that, that are interested in not only the performance, but you know, a lot of them are actually quite interested also in the sustainability component of the potential of what a Lula can become in

[00:41:25] terms of product in recycling. So, you know, usually the performance is going to drive quite a bit of interest in how you use the material and what you can get relative to competitive material. And then, um, when you add in the, uh, recycling component and the end of life component where, where we can close the loop and we're, we're working on that, then, and that adds another, uh, level of attraction to using Lula. Yeah, it definitely does. And you know,

[00:41:53] we're going to ask, obviously you work for Lula. So what's your favorite kite that you get to ride out in Squabish? So I, I just joined. No, yeah. I mean, that's funny. I, I have, uh, I have, I have a kite here that I need to try and I have a feeling it's going to be my new favorite kite.

[00:42:16] So it's a, it's an all Lula kite that we've, that we've got. And, um, yeah, this, this is tough. I mean, I, I, I like to try a lot of different kites. Uh, we'll see what, what this year I end up with. Um, but the nice thing is, is we, we do test out some designs in house to ensure that, you know, understanding the translation of our materials into a product, we concept, a few things out. Yeah. Well, we have, we have the ability to construct in house. So if we're,

[00:42:46] if we're wondering if, you know, we have an idea on how a material can be, can be built and then how that can be translated out, you know, we look at always trying to test that and ensuring that we can then understand how things are going to translate into market. We don't build out the products. We don't, um, you know, we don't make products, uh, but we definitely are, you know, trying to understand in advance our understanding of both the material, but also how that material is used. So, um,

[00:43:16] That makes sense. Obviously we have connections previously with ocean rodeo. That's, that's obviously been separated now, but, um, you know, you still have some of that knowledge, uh, in terms of translating materials into products. So. Which will help then push further development. If you see fixes or tweaks or implications of how that was used and you can then modify and keep driving that board. Is there anything else that

[00:43:39] you think we should talk about or mention for those folks at home? Um, either end to the, cause we went pretty far down that rabbit hole as to how everything is made and produced and created. Yep. Is there anything else you think they, they would like to know? Uh, yeah. I'm trying to think usually, usually when we go down these rabbit holes, we end up in a lot of different areas. So, um, it's, it's hard to, yeah. I, I mean, it's what's coming is going to be

[00:44:09] quite interesting. We're quite excited on, on pushing things forward and continue to advance in all markets, especially, you know, wind sports. And that's, that's where we obviously started. And so, you know, we have knowledge in there and we're pushing materials in that area and development in that area where, um, you know, we're going to try to continue to push that higher in terms of what

[00:44:31] performance is possible. And then how, you know, designers can, can continue to push, um, in terms of, of kite and wing design, um, using materials that then have higher performance, you know, may allow some different, uh, uh, designs to be created. Um, and then, yeah, as we, as we expanded to other markets, you know, we might, we might find some unique properties that then translate into all of our

[00:44:57] other, all of our other products as well. So it's just, we're trying to push the boundaries here and continue to push higher and higher and advance the performance more, but also, you know, become a stakeholder and someone that that's involved in pushing the sustainability of, of our product as well, because it is a synthetic material. And so we have to address the, the end of life and we've given it

[00:45:20] the potential of having that end of life. That's, that's readily, um, uh, accessible in terms of how we, how we deal with it. So try to put that in place over the next year or two and, and really see that happening where we, we close the loops of, of what a Lula is used in and how it's used and, um, yeah. Awesome. And obviously like, uh, the first mega loop was done because of

[00:45:49] a Lula, which is pretty cool fact actually. Well, right. I mean, it was a good, it was a good, uh, of course. Yeah. It was in Squamish. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, the, the material itself, you know, it allows, it allows translation and realization of, of products to do things. And then those athletes to do more things. Right. And that, that's quite, that's quite awesome. When you see that where, you know, you start to develop something that, that changes kind

[00:46:19] of what someone could do or what a product is capable of doing. Um, and we're, we're excited on, on how this is going to happen in, in many different markets as well. Well, yeah, like it was the first time it went 15 years. It always been trying it, but because of this material, it was able to hold its shape and then go through a maneuver, be safer, more effective, more efficient, which is absolutely fascinating. And that's a pretty cool to be attached to that.

[00:46:45] So, Hey, thanks a lot, Tyler, for taking the time today and explaining to us how it's made, which is always a super fun show. I always sit there realizing there's some very smart people in the world, but I do appreciate this. And yeah, no problem. It's, it's great to come on and kind of chat, chat technology. I always enjoy it and discussing, yeah, the difference in Alula, but also, you know, how it, how it functions and, and how it works and hopefully what, you know,

[00:47:14] then, then there can be some understanding of how, you know, if you see a new Alula kite, like, why is it different? What is it doing? Why does it respond that way? And then we can try to dig deeper into everyone kind of understanding that and seeing that, you know, develop outwards. Yeah, no, absolutely. And if anybody tuning in has any questions for Tyler or any questions about this mini series, and you guys want to learn more, reach out to us, set us a DM, we'll connect you with the right people, or we'll be able to ask some more questions and just dig a

[00:47:42] little bit deeper into the subject. Cause as you know, we are seeing this material everywhere now. And no, thanks again, Tyler for joining and thanks for having me. All right. Well, wait, we're going to have episode number three coming out soon. So, um, actually next week. So I do hope that you enjoy this series so far and we'll see you in the next one.