Published June 7, 2018 | Version v1
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Polyurethane flexible foam recycling via glycolysis using Zn/Sn/Al hydrotalcites as heterogeneous catalyst

Creators

  • 1. Universidad de Antioquia

Contributors

Description

Polyurethane is a highly versatile material used in comfort, packaging and
isolation industries. The global production of polyurethane generates several million tons
of non-biodegradable wastes. In this research, the chemical recovery of polyol from
polyurethane flexible foam (PUF) wastes was explored. The polyol recovery from PUF
was carried out via glycolysis with diethylene glycol (DEG) as a glycolysis agent, Zn/Sn/Al
hydrotalcite (HTC) as a heterogeneous catalyst under inert atmosphere using several
reaction conditions. The most suitable reaction conditions were achieved for 3 h of reaction,
PUF/DEG mass ratio of 1.5 and HTC/DEG of 0.001. The HTC was characterized by FTIR, XRD,
TEM and chemical analysis. The recovered polyol was characterized using IR, viscometry
and GPC; density and water content was also determined. The recovered polyol was used
in the synthesis of PUF as a partial replacement of virgin polyols, and the resultant foams
were analyzed using compression tests.

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