AMHERST, Mass. (June 9, 2022) – OrthoLite®, the industry leader of branded, sustainable, high performance and comfort footwear solutions, announces the expansion of its thermal foam, OrthoLite O-Therm™. Previously limited to a thickness of 2mm, O-Therm is now available in a thickness range from 2mm to 20mm, providing a more customizable cold block solution for brands with the most adaptable and high-performing thermal material available for cold weather footwear solutions.
O-Therm is the first and only aerogel-infused, open-cell PU foam cold block solution that can be applied not only as an insole but also a strobel layer or lining. Powered by its proprietary aerogel’s exceptional cold block properties, O-Therm remains unrivaled on performance, and has been third-party verified to be 54% more effective than other thermal insoles at blocking cold. For the consumer, the introduction of O-Therm means your feet stay warmer, you can stay outdoors longer, feel more comfortable, perform better and go farther in cold weather conditions.
“By offering footwear brands the opportunity to precisely select the thickness range to meet their specifications, O-Therm stands to become the market’s most versatile and standard-setting offering for cold weather footwear solutions,” said Rob Falken, Vice President of Innovation at OrthoLite. “Combined with O-Therm’s unparalleled technical upside, making the product more bespoke to consumer needs will allow brands to go further in developing the most precisely applicable and high-performing cold-weather footwear across a broad range of footwear categories, including: outdoor, casual, work, ski and snowboard, fashion, and other outdoor sectors.”
O-Therm technology creates a thermal barrier that blocks the cold and maintains footwear temperature regulation. Using anadvanced aerogel, the world’s most insulating material, the proprietary combination of material in O-Therm delivers unmatched thermal regulation and all-day comfort underfoot for cold-weather protection. Another key attribute of aerogel is its lightness. Aerogel is the lightest man-made material and only weighs three times the weight of air. Air porosity of the material is more than 90% and low density of the material enhances the performance of the shoe with lightweight comfort.
O-Therm advanced aerogel is also exceptionally hydrophobic, which means it repels water and moves moisture away from the foot to provide a drier, more comfortable inner environment. Exclusive to OrthoLite, this proprietary advanced aerogel requires no special handling or encapsulation – a world’s first.
OrthoLite worked with a third-party thermal test laboratory, New York City-based Vartest Laboratories, to quantify the thermal performance of O-Therm aerogel insoles under extreme cold conditions -78°C (-108°F). The third-party test results validate that O-Therm is a breathable thermal barrier that is 54% more effective on average in comparative testing to other thermal insoles when tested at -78°C (-108°F).
O-Therm retains all of the comfort and performance benefits of OrthoLite open-cell PU foam. O-Therm is a thermal foam available in thickness ranging from 2mm to 20mm that can be combined with a wide range of OrthoLite top-layer foams to create a custom insole solution tailored to a broad range of footwear categories. The expanded thickness range of O-Therm also makes it an ideal thermal barrier solution for footwear linings and strobel layers—bringing unsurpassed cold block technology without adding bulk or weight.
All OrthoLite insole formulations utilize recycled rubber to support the company’s goal of Zero Waste. O-Therm contains 5% total eco content from recycled rubber.
As a vertically-integrated U.S. company with facilities around the world, OrthoLite collaborates with its brand partners to create and produce custom insole formulations that deliver unrivaled comfort and performance. For additional information on the newly expanded O-Therm line, please click here.
