Study on the influence of raw material dosages on the production temperature of flexible polyurethane foam

Abstract

Flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) is a flammable synthetic polymer. In the foam production process, large amount of heat would be released from the chemical reactions of raw materials, which would even cause spontaneous combustion of foam. Thus, it would be meaningful to study the heat generation mechanisms and provide some measures to decrease heat production during FPUF production. This paper implemented FPUF production and temperature monitoring experiments to study the influence of different raw material dosages on the the FPUF production temperature. Meanwhile, FTIR analysis experiments were implemented to study the reason of production temperature changes at the influence of different raw material dosages. From the results, FPUF production temperature is closely related to the physical changes (such as evaporation, volume change, mass change) and chemical changes (such as foaming reaction, gelling reaction, catalytic reaction) of the foaming process. Insufficient polyol will lead to a significant increase in FPUF production temperature, which is a bigger potential safety hazard in FPUF production than dosage misuse of other raw materials. Meanwhile, replace part of polyether polyol with polymer polyol and replace part of water with methylene chloride in the FPUF formula can further effectively reduce the foam production temperature, and keep the foam quality simultaneously.