Bio-based polyurethane foams from renewable resources

In the last decades, bio-derived natural materials, such as vegetable oils, polysaccharides and biomass represent a rich source of hydroxyl precursors for the synthesis of polyols which can be potentially used to synthesize “greener” polyurethane foams. Herein a bio-based precursor (obtained from succinic acid) was used as a partial replacement of conventional polyol to synthesize PU foams. A mixture of conventional and bio-based polyol in presence of catalysts, silicone surfactant and diphenylmethane di-isocyanate (MDI) was expanded in a mold and cured for two hours at room temperature. Experimental results highlighted the suitability of this bio-precursor to be used in the production of flexible PU foams. Furthermore the chemo-physical characterization of the resulting foams show an interesting improvement in thermal stability and elastic modulus with respect to the PU foams produced with conventional polyol.