Sustainable Approach to Produce Polyurethane Composite Foams with Natural Materials

Abstract

Due to the rapid increase in population growth, energy and synthetic material consumption, the materials which reduce energy consumption like isolation materials have been gaining an importance after results of many innovative research. So far, the most part of energy reducing materials have been produced by synthetic chemicals and therefore have a detrimental effect on the natural world and living organisms. Rigid polyurethane foam (PUF) is mainly manufactured by synthetic raw materials and widely used as an isolation material for different applications. It is estimated that 96 million tons of PUR foam was produced in 2015. The purpose of this study is to reduce the usage of synthetic raw materials which are used to produce PUF and incorporate natural materials in order to decrease the harmful effects of the synthetics. Resulted composite PUFs demonstrated the similar thermal and physical properties, while the increase content for the ecological and natural sustainability.