POLYURETHANES | INNOVATIONS
on their syngas recovery. Our members are actively exploring these technologies as they are refined and scaled up.” One problem with mechanical recycling of post-consumer PUR foam is that second-life applications are generally low-value. Hence the rise of chemical recycling, which offers the possibility of creating new raw materials – polyols – that have just about the same properties as polyols used to make the first-life polyurethanes. EuroPUR is the association of European flexible
polyurethane foam block manufacturers. It says that in Europe, most discarded mattresses are sent to energy recovery plants – but the situation is changing. In a recent statement on the situation in the Netherlands, it said that around three-quarters of mattresses are now collected and recycled. One company alone, RetourMatras, has handled 1m mattresses in recent years across three locations. Michel Baumgartner, Secretary General at
EuroPUR, says: “The reality is however that if all countries were to start to recycle post-consumer foams, market outlets for the recyclates would not be able to absorb all the available volumes. That is why other technologies need to be developed.” It says chemical recycling using glycolysis has been in use at an industrial scale in Europe since 2013 for post-industrial waste and has now evolved to also be able to recycle post-consumer foams. “The latter is more difficult to achieve because of the great variation in age and composition of materials coming from discarded mattresses. But we are now getting there.” Many other projects on chemical recycling of
polyurethane foam are currently making rapid progress, says EuroPUR. It notes that RetourMatras and its shareholders INGKA Investments (part of the Ikea group) and Renewi Nederland have announced plans to begin chemical recycling, using glycolysis technology developed by Ikano Industry in Poland (also see box on page 39). Ikano
Left: Production trim scrap. Most gets reused via rebonding
began life as a part of Ikea, but is now an inde- pendent producer of mattresses. A number of publicly funded projects are also looking at chemical recycling across Europe, notably the PureSmart project headed by Recticel, the Polynspire project, and the Danish RePURpose project based around mattress manufacturer Tempur.
“Chemical recycling will play an especially
crucial role for polyurethanes,” says Jörg Palmer- sheim, Secretary General of ISOPA. The organisa- tion is a member of the European Coalition for Chemical Recycling, set up in March 2019 by CEFIC and Plastics Europe to collectively address key and common issues concerning chemical recycling. PU Europe, which represents the European polyure- thane insulation industry, joined in January. “Our current management of end-of-life polyure-
thane products is not sustainable and future-proof,” say the people at the RePURpose project, which focuses on innovative technologies for recycling of PUR. These technologies cover mechanical and chemical means. RePURpose is a collaborative research project involving various local manufactur-
IMAGE: PFA
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