Chemical Recycling of Polyurethane Foams Waste via Glycolysis

The purpose of the glycolysis of flexible polyurethane foams is to recover the polyol. In the process, three phases are obtained: an upper phase which contains the polyol, a bottom phase which has the subproducts of the reaction and the excess of glycol, and a third phase which is in the middle and it is formed by the polyurethane unreacted. Several factors that affect the reaction have been studied to optimize the yield of polyol obtained. These factors are the temperature of reaction, the time of reaction, the catalyst (diethanolamine, DEA) to solvent (diethylenglycol, DEG) mass ratio, and the catalyst +solvent to polyurethane mass ratio. The recovered polyol is compared to a virgin polyol by a GPC chromatogram in order to verify its quality.