Recent Advances in TDI 80/20 with Stannous Octoate Catalyst Viscoelastic (VE) Foams Produced from Both Hydrocarbon Based Polyols, as Well as Natural Oil Derived Polyol (NOP)

摘要

Viscoelastic (VE) foams are a category of flexible foams which exhibit low resiliency and slow recovery in application use, primarily driven by demand in the premium bedding market. Over the past five years, demand for VE foam has increased significantly exceeding 500MM lbs, and averaging 10 to 15% growth per year. However, industry experts believe growth of these products would be even greater if the industry can overcome significant manufacturing problems associated with narrow processing latitude. This narrow processing window is particularly acute in TDI 80/20 with stannous octoate catalyst based systems. At The Dow Chemical Company, we embarked on a fundamentally based program to fully and systematically understand viscoelastic foams. Recent breakthroughs from our work have lead to the development of best-in-class viscoelastic foams based on TDI-80/20 with stannous octoate catalyst system that are quite competitive with viscoelastic foams from TDI-65/35 with dibutytin dilaurate (DBTDL) catalyst, or PMDI based systems. These breakthroughs have been achieved by leveraging our in-house model based formulation design platform; use of newly developed proprietary modified polyols; as well as our natural oil polyols technology. All these levers have enabled broader processing latitude, as well as wider product performance window. These technologies have been leveraged in producing viscoelastic foams from both hydrocarbon based polyols, as well as those derived from our patented natural oil polyols (NOPs).