Polycardl? XFN a novel class of bio-based polyols for rigid foam formulations

摘要

The amount of Natural Oil Polyols (NOPs) produced in the NAFTA region doubled annually in the last few years, due to the increasing interest in environmentally-friendly technologies and products. At the moment the market offers NOPs from soybean oil or other natural oils and polyether polyols from cereal-derived materials. Polycard XFN?, a group of polyols of the Exaphen? brand of bio-based resins, are derived from naturally-occurring moieties with an alkyl-phenolic structure. The raw materials are extracted with solvent-free technology from agricultural by-products, which are non-food materials and thus less sensitive to oil and food-price fluctuations. The phenolic structure allows aromatic and aromatic-amine polyols with various functionality and reactivity degrees, particularly suited for the formulation of rigid foams for insulation. To the author's knowledge Polycard XFN products are the only series of commercially available bio-based polyols with aromatic or aromatic-amine structure and bio-based content above 73%. In the present paper the general structure and characteristics of the polyols are presented together with formulations for rigid spray foams, sandwich panels and pour-in-place insulation systems. Polycard XFN polyol formulations are compared to commercially available NOPs and equivalent oil-based products to evaluate reactivity, mechanical properties and flame-retardant characteristics of the materials. The comparison shows higher reactivity than other NOPs, excellent mechanical properties (high compression resistance) and flame-resistance behavior similar to commercial oil-based equivalents, thus confirming that these products can contribute significantly to increase the bio-based content of rigid foams without loss in performance.