|
Memory Foam
Foams are formed by the trapping of many gas bubbles in a liquid or solid. The manufacture of foam is most easily likened to baking a cake - you start of with the raw materials, in this case Polyurethane (a thermoplastic - meaning a plastic that becomes soft when heated and hard when cooled) and some additives. These are combined, and gas is added (like the process of beating the mixture when making a cake). Next, the mixture is put inside a large oven, and left to harden.
A Polyurethane Polymer
After this comes 'Skiving' - this Sis the process where we take off the harder, top layer of foam, to leave us with the best, most reactive Memory Foam. It is important to note that not all manufactures do this, although it is essential part of creating quality Memory Foam.
Once the foam has been baked, and skived, it undergoes a rigorous phase of testing, before being cut into shape and used in our mattresses.
Temperature Reactive Materials (Get your free sample here)
It may sound like science fiction but Outlast have created a fabric that maintains a constant temperature regardless of external conditions. For example, if you are too hot when you get into bed, the Outlast material will take away excess heat from your skin, and store it within the fabric to warm you later on in the night. The fabric won TIME magazine's 'Invention of the Year' award. For a free sample of the material, click here.
Outlast® Thermocules® under the microscope
Phase Change Materials, as they're known, work through two well-known technologies. On the one hand you have microencapsulation known for example from chewing gums. Chewing gums are stored in microcapsules. When chewing on the capsules, they are destroyed and the taste is released. Or perfume samples: The microcapsules are destroyed by rubbing with a finger and the smell is released.
Microcapsules are also used in Outlast fabrics - although they are different in that the shell is durable - it is not possible to destroy it. The microcapsules ('Comfort Cells') themselves are very, very tiny, around 1,000 fit on the head of a pin (ca. 3 Millionen pro cm²). Inside the microcapsules substances similar to paraffin are stored which are able to change their phase. This is similar to the way water freezes into ice or becomes vapour when energy is fed or deprived. The PCM technology takes advantage of this effectiveness.
|
