The widespread use of polyurethane foams in processing technology leads to high volumes of excess waste. Proper handling of this waste is of paramount importance for environmental, social, and economic reasons.
In order to reduce waste, our project aims to solve the mechanical recycling of closed-cell, rigid, cross-linked polyurethane foams. The rigid foam waste generated in our plant is subjected to a special grinding process. Grinds are mixed with a custom-formulated binder in a ratio of 70-30%, to produce upcycled polyurethane foam sheets.
During the research, we first identified the upcycling opportunities of closed-cell polyurethane foam materials and purchased the necessary machinery. Later, we started the production of polyurethane foam and finally developed the prototypes.