It's been a few months since you won the Terra Carta Design Lab award. How has the going been since then? How much progress have you been able to make on your project? Could you please elaborate?
With the support from Terra Carta, we have been able to accelerate mass manufacturing of Amphitex, both the water-repellent fabric and waterproof breathable membrane, while simultaneously working on the circularity and recycling of our product by running additional recycling tests. We are now able to weave yarn made from very unique material composition into fine textile which exhibits very good water-repellency while also confident in being able to provide a recyclable material.
The exposure has provided us with a platform to have very exciting conversations with different brands and clients. Understanding their perspectives, challenges and feedback is invaluable to our material development.
From concept to lab stage to mass production, it is quite a distance. At what point of that journey are you currently in? Where do the current challenges lie?
We are in the midst of our first mass manufacturing trial. The woven fabric can now be produced in a 1.5m width roll on industrial weaving machines and the waterproof breathable membrane is now being scaled to industrial production machines with very promising early results.
Currently, the main challenge lies with the finishing process of the textile and subsequent handling of the textile to reduce manufacturing contamination and keep its inherent water-repellent properties without excessive washing.
To make a new textile that is waterproof/breathable, you would have had to go to the drawing board and make it right from scratch (if that's the right phrase). How did you go about doing it? How long did the initial ideation process take? How many people were involved? In short, what's the story there?
Luckily for us, our textile was spun out from another innovation—the underwater breathing artificial gill device—which was the reason Jun Kamei, founder and CEO, primarily established Amphibio Ltd. For the artificial gill to work, we needed a waterproof but gas permeable membrane technology which is cheaper than fluorinated chemicals for scalability reasons.
This key material development, therefore, happened before we were aware of the challenges of the textile industry, but two years ago we had an “aha” moment where we realised that our technology for the artificial gill could be used in many industries.
Upon researching, understanding the challenges and current products within outdoor wear and sportswear, we realised that our material could help reduce and solve some of the key environmental issues, like PFCs, PTFE and laminated mixed material. It became a very exciting opportunity.
Over the past four years since Amphibio was founded, we’ve grown to a team of eight working on the material innovation for Amphitex with great competences from material science, textile design and design engineering.
