H&S delivers the world's first industrial system for flexible PU foam conversion
H&S Anlagentechnik GmbH has received an order from a Polish slabstock foam manufacturer to supply the world's first industrial-scale system to recover polyol from flexible polyurethane foam waste materials. The main target of the project is increasing sustainability in the PU mattresses manufacturing.
Designed to produce 2.500 t of polyol per year, the system will begin operating in spring 2013.
Besides the reactor as the core unit of the system, the H&S scope of delivery also includes the entire storage and conveying facilities for the solid and liquid input materials as well as the tank farm for the recovered polyol.
The method of polyol recovery developed by H&S is based on acidolysis under which flexible PU foam is being converted into polyol in presence of different carboxylic acids.
The comprehensive testing of the polyol has already been performed in cooperation with the customer on the continuous slabstock production line. The polyol used for industrial test runs was generated in the pilot reactor of the H&S laboratory.
The new recycling process enables now H&S's customer to return all flexible foam residues arising during processing of the foam blocks back into production.
The recovered polyol can replace original polyol in the range up to 20% without compromising the quality of the resulted PU foam products.
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