After four years of research, Swiss sneaker brand On has announced the Cloudprime, a running shoe made from carbon emissions. Working with chemical manufacturer LanzaTech, energy company Technip Energies and plastics manufacturer Borealis, On produced the EVA foam for the Cloudprime midsole from an unlikely source: industrial pollution.
Here’s how it works. LanzaTech captures carbon monoxide from steel mills, landfills and other industrial-scale polluters. They then combine these emissions with bacteria first identified in rabbit feces (no kidding), which ferment the mixture into liquid ethanol. The company says the process is similar to what happens in a brewery, with sugar and yeast replaced with carbon monoxide and rabbit poo bacteria.
The ethanol is then handed over to Technip Energies, which has the technology to dehydrate the ethanol into ethylene. This ethylene is then given to Borealis, which polymerizes it into EVA foam (ethyl vinyl acetate), which is called CleanCloud™.
For the sake of brevity, I’ve roughly condensed the material’s development history; If you love chemistry and the challenges of setting up a supply chain from scratch, I highly recommend reading the full development story of CleanCloud here.
The Cloudprime is currently being tested by Swiss and German elite athletes, who rate it for its performance. We did not mention a specific release date and will simply say “Our ambition is to bring the CleanCloud™ technology to as many consumers as possible in the near future”.