Research on recycling technology of waste polyurethane (PU) foam for insulation materials

Abstract

Polyurethane (PU) foam is increasingly used in refrigeration technology and construction with its outstanding sound and heat insulation capabilities. The use of PU foam is higher and higher, and this leads the increasing of PU foam emission. Meanwhile there is no research on the recycling of waste PU foam in Vietnam currently. In this study, we used the recyling polyol product that was successfully made by our team from the process of recycling waste PU foam by glycolysis and then modified by natural oil. The recycling product has similar properties to the commercial product (origin polyol). As the result, the regenerative rigid PU foam was made by two methods: sheet molding and spray method. Accordingly, the recycling polyol can be used up to 40% (m/m) in the mixture with origin polyol. And the resulting foam has good appearance, the specific characteristics of  sound and heat insulation materials like low thermal conductivity and sound transmission reduction coefficient and also low density.