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Sustainable Polyurethanes: Chemical Recycling to Get It

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Environment, Energy and Climate Change I

Part of the book series: The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry ((HEC,volume 32))

Abstract

Nowadays polyurethanes are one of the most important classes of polymers in the chemical market due to the huge diversity of their applications. Polyurethane is placed the sixth of the most used plastics in the world ranking. As a consequence of their commercial success, a great quantity of wastes are generated, not only post-consumer products but also scrap from slabstock manufacturing. In the past, landfilling was the solution to the problem, but, nowadays, the new environmental laws do essential to develop environmental sustainable recycling processes. On the one hand, there are physical methods that do not modify the internal structure of the polyurethane and only convert mechanically the wastes in flakes, granules or powder to be used as fillers for new PUs or to be rebounded. However, these physical processes can be only applied with thermoplastic polyurethane, while the majority of polyurethane specialties are thermostable polymers. Therefore, chemical processes are mainly used to recycle polyurethane wastes. These chemical recycling processes allow to obtain basic hydrocarboned units known as monomers that are able to be used as synthesis materials in chemical and petrochemical industry. This way, it is possible to achieve high value-added products that can be used in the synthesis of new polyurethane products. Thus, the main aim of this chapter is to describe the presently known technologies for the chemical recycling of polyurethane wastes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemical and Environmental Technology (ITQUIMA), University of Castilla, La Mancha, Spain

    D. Simón, A. M. Borreguero, A. de Lucas, C. Gutiérrez & J. F. Rodríguez

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  1. D. Simón
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  2. A. M. Borreguero
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  3. A. de Lucas
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  4. C. Gutiérrez
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  5. J. F. Rodríguez
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Correspondence to J. F. Rodríguez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Ciudad Real, Spain

    Elena Jiménez

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Ciudad Real, Spain

    Beatriz Cabañas

  3. CERTES-IUT, The University Paris-Est Créteil, Paris Créteil, France

    Gilles Lefebvre

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Simón, D., Borreguero, A.M., de Lucas, A., Gutiérrez, C., Rodríguez, J.F. (2014). Sustainable Polyurethanes: Chemical Recycling to Get It. In: Jiménez, E., Cabañas, B., Lefebvre, G. (eds) Environment, Energy and Climate Change I. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2014_275

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