Folsom’s Graphene Skis: The Science Behind the Magic
Breaking down how MITO Materials and Folsom are partnering up to produce the next generation of snow equipment
Materials Matter
In today’s day and age, we are hyper-aware of the materials we use and their impact on the world around us. We’re now in a world that we need to be. Where does my plastic come from, fossil fuel or is it plant-based? Am I willing to pay more for a shirt that will last 10x as long as its “fast fashion” equivalent? The market is respectively trending towards “plant-based, please” and “Oh God, yeah. Have you seen what hellscape that brings?” The materials around us are evolving so fast, that the scientists and their iteration cycles can’t keep up with the changes that are needed. Take for instance epoxy and its performance with carbon fiber. Over time, the epoxy formulation has had small iterations between producers to differentiate themselves in the market. It’s the equivalent of Apple vs. Samsung but without the unnecessary turf war. Honestly, the largest leap made in the epoxy world that has happened in the last 20-ish years is the development of a plant-based epoxy. A good chunk of composite producers (sporting goods in particular) has been pushing to transition to this system for years now, but the green epoxy severely lacks the performance needed in most applications. This has made producers look for performance supplements to add to their products.
Add a Little Spice to It
Generally, what do you do when you have a recipe that’s just okay? Scrap it and spend your time and resources looking for different recipes, trying them out, and picking the one you like best? Or would you just slap some oregano in the original recipe? Unless you really like wasting time, you’re going to put a little bit of extra zing in that sucker because you’re a Michelin Star Chef, and you know it. In the world of composites, that extra zing comes in a couple of different forms called “additives.” We could waste our time going over the different forms of additives, but they’re all ancient and have way too many shortfalls to be used in anything else besides airplanes and F1 cars. The one additive I want to highlight is the newest one on the market: Graphene. A couple of key characteristics:
- Extremely small!
- It’s carbon!
- Can hypothetically increase mechanical property performance 1,000x!
- Very electrically conductive!
- Universally compatible!
- Requires really low loadings! Less than 3% by weight!
It sounds too good to be true! That’s because it is. Graphene may give these properties but is REALLY hard to integrate beyond a couple of one-off projects. Not to mention, it’s been a material that has traditionally only been available for use in very, very high-end applications. We absolutely couldn’t understand the “why” behind that thinking, so we started MITO Materials to show them how to really make an additive work for the masses.
Mighty MITO Makes Mighty Moves
At MITO Materials, we knew the potential that graphene and its cousin, graphene oxide, were capable of. We knew what the shortfalls of graphene were, so we spent some time solving them. After doing some science, we developed a very robust process where we could plug and play different chemical groups with graphene to make it chemically compatible, highly dispersible, and affordable for more than just aerospace people. The flagship product we decided to go with is E-GO: a graphene scaffold paired with an epoxide+silicone structure. E-GO is specifically designed to solve the problems of graphene while improving on its attributes. Some properties observed by our customers are:
- 135% increase in strength.
- 100% increase in modulus.
- 65% increase in compressive properties.
- Can be used in epoxies, polyesters, vinylesters, and numerous thermoplastics.
- Usable with fiberglass and carbon fiber.
- Increased dampening properties (AKA fewer to no vibrations).
- Can be integrated with a drill and paint mixer attachment!
- Incredibly low loading: 0.1% by weight. That means 2lbs of E-GO can empower 3,000 carbon fiber bikes or five Ford F-150s worth of plastic to perform like never before.
Now I’m an engineer, and even I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what all those numbers mean in the real world for real people. Legitimately every industry could benefit from those increases. Automotive? Gimme that E-GO ‘Lambo. Aerospace? Let’s make those bad boys entirely out of composites at this rate. But that’s not the mission of MITO Materials. MITO Materials was founded to up the anty and to usher in a new materials era.
Nearly 100% of the time, every time, those traits that E-GO shows off get people pretty pumped. What sends them over the edge is the answer to their next question: “How in the hell can you do this?” Let me explain! With science!
Strap In, We’re Doing a Science
I’m gonna do what I call a “Tarantino,” which is where we reveal the ending then go back and explain how we got there. Ready? The answer is functional chemistry. Whoa, big sciency words. Take five, grab a snack, take a breath, come back and then we’ll talk it out.
Alright, for those of you who didn’t panic and closed the tab: welcome back! Okay, so what I mean by (brace yourself) functional chemistry is that we took something that had a bunch of problems (graphene) and spiced it up with some active chemistry. Think of the frustration and sadness you experience when making chocolate chip pancakes. You know that adding those little pockets of goodness into hot cakes of sawdust objectively makes them a billion times better. But when you go to mix them in the batter, they’re hard to evenly disperse despite adding a small handful; and then they settle to the bottom of the batch really easily so as you make more, you gradually go from “1800’s gold miner’s meal” to a solid disk of chocolate. Prayers for the sucker who pulls from the bottom of that pile. Now imagine if those chocolate chips were formulated to be functional so they stayed suspended in the batter, and that every pancake had the perfect amount of chips in every bite, taking this from an Oregon Trail breakfast to a five-year-old’s dream morning.
This same scenario applies to graphene and composites! Graphene is a physical filler (like chocolate chips) that is supposed to boost the quality of the system it goes into. Graphene also experiences the same problems: it’s tricky to disperse, it settles out, and not everyone has the same experience. We formulated E-GO to have the physical behaviors of graphene but to also have chemical characteristics that aid in dispersion and suspension. It’s these same chemical sites that make composites perform like never before. Those same dispersion aids respond to the curing of the composite, bringing those layers of fiber and epoxy/polyester/vinylester together while increasing how strong they hold together. This is what enables E-GO to simultaneously increase properties (modulus and strength) when usually it’s a trade-off. All at that 0.1%! That’s like making one chocolate chip making 100 pancakes taste good!
“Wolverine’s Adamantium Skeleton”
Naturally, this made Folsom Skis extremely interested. Folsom is a custom ski manufacturer based out of Colorado and makes some killer products. They make skis ranging from beginner to advanced, for use on anything from slopes to backcountry. They’re held as the cream of the crop in their industry, is what I’m saying. Their CEO, Mike McCabe, has been looking to use graphene for years, but either nothing has worked or costs way too much. So we got him a sample and he made a couple of sets of skis for the season to see if those crazy increases would translate over to an already highly engineered product. Mike kept two sets internal and gave a set to his harshest critic, Doug Mock (he wrote a whole review here). Talk about nerve-wracking. Of course, being in the game for so long, Doug has seen some stuff. So of course he was skeptical:
“…did they shred because of the graphene? There was only one way to know for sure.”
So for six solid months, Doug skied on Folsom’s Primary 104s, their newest backcountry ski meant to tear it up through it all. Fun, responsive, and fast, they have it all. Doug spent three months using their control set, and three months on a MITO Powered set using 10 grams of E-GO. “Throughout my ten years with the brand, every single pair of skis Folsom has built me has been a revelation,” he said. The control set was fun, so by the time Doug started using the MITO Powered skis, he was wondering how the skis could get any better. Tell us, Doug, how did your trial go?
“For the hard charging backcountry skier, the graphene skis were like being handed the keys to a full-on F1 car, when you were used to doing your track laps in some average, run of the mill Ferrari. They go faster, push harder, drive more precisely and more playfully. With virtually zero weight penalty, they are a far burlier board, which is pretty well unheard of in my reasonably-long experience.”
Right on, man. That’s because when Doug was trying to push the MITO Powered set to their limits, he quickly found that there were no limits. He could push and push on 42° slopes, bouncing between hard pack and powder, and they just. kept. going. Not only would they push harder and faster than anything else, but the hard vibrations that are associated with carbon fiber skis were gone. And on top of that, these performance values translated over to the more gentle 28° slopes.
“I believe the greatest advantage of a graphene build might be found by the progression-oriented skier, who maybe isn’t pushing their gear the hardest they can, everyday. Or not yet, at least.”
So because of E-GO, these amazing backcountry skis not only kill it for the more experienced skiers, but they’re skis that can you can grow with and push to your limits. Just with, and I cannot stress this enough, 10 grams of E-GO. That’s equivalent to 20 coffee beans, or a teaspoon of raspberry jelly. Gotta stick with those kitchen metaphors.
Fundamental Science Becomes Applicable Reality
“Those skis sound pretty sweet, especially the ‘F1 car’ set! But how does that witch craft you call ‘E-GO’ enable it? And how does it translate to other things?” Great question, metaphorical person I made up to help tie it all together! Remember way back a couple of paragraphs ago how I was explaining that E-GO was designed to not only disperse and suspend itself, but to pull the whole composite together with increased adherence? That’s exactly why Doug was able to push those skis harder than ever before. When E-GO does its thing during the creation of composites, it chemically and physically creates these little pathways inside of the resin/glue that holds it all together. That way, when the composite is put under stress, the energy dissipates. That means that the load is distributed, or spread out, more evenly.
Vibrations are made from energy too, but instead of one big energy event (i.e. the ski flexing hard), it is a bunch of mini flexing events. So because you have something in the mix that acts as an energy dissipator, those vibrations are drastically reduced! It’s not only Doug and Folsom that is going to change their industry with this pixie dust either!
- Semi-trailer manufacturers are trying so hard to go to composites, but they don’t perform well enough. A half-pound of E-GO is enabling that, where an all-composite trailer will have the same fatigue life and loading as before but be 40% lighter, saving the U.S. alone $12 billion in fuel and 60 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.
- Wind turbines fail pretty regularly, and when one blade needs replaced, they replace all three. Making them out of fiberglass/vinylester is the only option because anything else is way too heavy. With E-GO involved, not only will a MITO Powered turbine blade last significantly longer due to increased properties, but they could theoretically make the blade up to 35% lighter itself.
You get the idea. A little goes a long way with E-GO, from skis to wind turbine blades.
Until Next Time
I hope this sheds some light not only on how freaking sweet Folsom’s next generation of skis are, but how it’s all possible with Sweet Lady Science and a little bit of pixie dust. So go check out Folsom as they launch their new MITO Powered skis this September, and tell them Kevin sent ya! They’ll know who you’re talking about.
