Schoeller Signs Hydro_Bot Production Agreement

1892
Schoeller
Schoeller
Siegfried Winkelbeiner, CEO of Schoeller Textil AG

Schoeller Textil AG and Osmotex AG have signed a production agreement for Hydro_Bot. This agreement represents another major step towards commercialisation for Hydro_Bot. The two companies also announced that further tests of the Hydro_Bot panels have shown encouraging results for the moisture management solution. Hydro_Bot, a new technology for moisture management was first introduced at ISPO earlier this year. Hydro_Bot will solve one of the biggest challenges in sports, work and protective clothing: to transport moisture to matches human sweat rates in various climates, conditions and activity levels.

Behind Hydro_Bot is Osmotex, a Swiss-Norwegian start-up dedicated to developing solutions for electro osmosis for moisture management. The Swiss leading textile manufacturer, Schoeller Textil AG is the production partner for the Hydro_Bot panels.  The agreement means that Schoeller will market Hydro_Bot to its clients and enable Osmotex to support new client projects with Hydro_Bot with all the hallmark qualities a world-leading Swiss textile manufacturer. The first product to consumer is planned with Kjus, a leading innovator in ski-, golf- and lifestyle wear. They will be the first leading brand to take Hydro_Bot to market in selected skiwear products planned for the 2018/2019 season. On-going testing in the reign of Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, suggest that everything is proceeding to plan with the expected quality. «World-class testing of Hydro_Bot is crucial, and we are pleased with the results to date. The agreement with Schoeller now also finally secures our quality production, and we are soon ready to provide samples for the demo jackets for 2018/19 season», says Trond Heldal, Director of R&D and Operations at Osmotex and the lead researcher on the decade long research and development effort.

«It is our speciality to bring highly-functional fabrics, knits and innovative textile technologies to market. With Hydro_Bot we enable a totally new functionality to be brought into garments. Now we are step closer to the new reality smart textile performance», says Siegfried Winkelbeiner, CEO of Schoeller Textil AG.