Chemical Recycling of Flexible Polyurethane Foams to Recover High Quality Polyols

Abstract

Abstract Polyurethane foams are widely used commodity materials, but most of them end up in landfills at the end of their life, which is not in line with the circular economy approach. Here we introduce microwave-assisted aminolysis as an efficient chemical recycling process for polyurethane foams. Amino reagents containing primary and tertiary amino groups in the structure, which act both as a reagent and a catalyst, are shown to be particularly effective in degrading urethane groups in the foam structure. The recycled polyols have structural and molar mass characteristics that basically make them perfect analogues of the corresponding virgin polyether polyols. Therefore, the production of high-quality polyurethane foams exclusively from the recycled polyols is possible without having to adapt the synthesis process. The flexible foams synthesised from recycled polyols have comparable mechanical properties to those produced from virgin polyols, which has not been achieved with any recycled polyol so far.