High resilience cold-aged polyurethane foam has excellent mechanical properties and high compression load ratio, so it has remarkable sitting comfort, excellent fatigue resistance, latex-like feel, good air permeability, and its high production efficiency and low energy consumption have been widely used in automotive seats.
Hyundai Motor Company’s plant in Ulsan will exclusively use BASF’s Elastoflex polyurethane flexible foam compound to produce automotive seats. This highly flexible polyurethane foam has a low VOC content and is mainly used in the production of automotive seats and headrests, etc.
Compared to conventional foams, Elastoflex improves the comfort, flexibility and load-bearing properties of seats, headrests, etc.
BASF has also optimized the production process of polyether polyols to meet stringent emission control regulations. The polyether polyol is used to produce Elastoflex polyurethane foam, which is used to produce high-comfort seats. The optimized production process enables BASF to produce special polyether polyols with low cost, high performance and low VOC emissions.
In tests conducted by SGSKorea, a leading global testing institute, Elastoflex reduced acetaldehyde and formaldehyde emissions by more than 30 percent, helping to improve interior air quality and the health of car drivers. Field tests also showed that the newly developed polyurethane compound has excellent flowability and a reduced rate of product defects, resulting in increased productivity in the production line.
Car seats take up a large area for use in the production of cars, which directly determines the amount of material used as well. The car gradually affects people’s way of life, making people’s travel more and more convenient, the traditional car seats are mostly leather products, most of which are sponge and other materials, lacking a certain degree of comfort, nowadays, soft polyurethane foam is used as one of the production materials for car seats, good value for money, and gradually applied to a large number of car production by manufacturers.
Polyurethane foam is a new type of softer material with a certain degree of elasticity, its own porous, density footing, good resilience, sound absorption, breathability, good insulation and other properties, applied in all aspects of life. Many manufacturers choose to use highly elastic polyurethane foam as the production material for car seats, and the performance shown by this material is gradually accepted by people.
The static comfort of the car seat refers to whether the matching relationship between the car seat and the human body can provide comfortable sitting conditions for the user. The static comfort of the seat is related to the size parameters, surface treatment and adjustment characteristics of the seat.
The composition of the car seat is mostly the foam material with high elasticity and low density, which can prevent the burning of the material. And nowadays, our government has more strict requirements for automobile materials, requiring its large value of combustion ≤ 70mm/min. Such regulations have greatly increased the safety of the car itself, and the soft polyurethane foam with this standard of combustion speed to do the car seat has gradually appeared in the vision of manufacturers.
The abrasion resistance of flexible polyurethane foam is used as the raw material of car seats, and the fragility of many plastic products makes it impossible to use for a long time, but flexible polyurethane foam has good abrasion resistance, its own tensile strength, and tear resistance, so that it has superior performance, compared with the traditional car seats, its low cost, long use time, strong plasticity, and can be used with the car. Compared with the traditional car seat, its low cost, long service life, high plasticity, can be compatible with the car, gradually attracted the favor of automobile manufacturers.
In 2011, QC/T 850-2011 “Polyurethane Foam for Passenger Car Seats” was issued and implemented, which is the first industry standard in China that sets out the requirements for dispersion of polyurethane foam for car seats, and in the same year, it was promulgated and implemented. In the same year, the recommended national standard GB/T 7630- 2011 “Air Quality Evaluation Guide for Passenger Cars” was promulgated and implemented. This prompted domestic assembly plants to put forward higher requirements for volatile organic compounds (VOC), mechanical properties, and comfort performance of automotive seats.
Polyurethane flexible foam is a porous or reticulated foam (sponge) material with certain elasticity and softness, its outstanding performance is soft, good rebound, sound absorption, breathability, heat preservation, cushioning, energy absorption, etc., and there are various characteristics according to different applications.
Polyurethane flexible foam since 1952 Bayer polyester type flexible foam (sponge) began industrial production, after more than 60 years of development, has been in all aspects of people’s daily life and many industrial fields have been quite widely used, the actual domestic production of soft foam is estimated at more than 3 million tons. The main types of products are anti-shock materials, sound insulation materials, filtration materials, thermal insulation materials, packaging materials, decorative materials, apparel materials, etc. In terms of classification by type of production alone, polyurethane flexible foam mainly includes: block foam (ordinary sponge), high resilience molded foam, self-crusting foam, slow resilience foam, etc.
Production process of hydrophilic polyurethane flexible foam
1、Basic characteristics
It has great affinity for water, absorbs water quickly and with high water absorption, high softness (good hand feeling) and good elasticity; its microscopic pores are fine and have a mesh-like open structure, and its excellent bioaffinity and blood compatibility broaden its wide application in cosmetics and medical fields.
2、Current application scope
The characteristics of hydrophilic polyurethane foam also determine that it will have good applications in certain fields, such as
(1) Nursing and physiological products such as mattress pads for bedridden patients and auxiliary materials for sanitary napkins
(2) Medical auxiliary materials, surgical auxiliary materials (absorbing blood similar to the role of cotton)
(3) trauma dressing accessories, such as band-aids and other medical anti-inflammatory supplies
(4) daily cleaning blocks, bath blocks, etc.
(5) makeup care products, such as powder puffs, etc.
(6) Special field of absorption treatment materials.
3、Production process
At present, there are two main methods of industrial production or being developed, one is one-step method (the same as the production method of ordinary PU foam), and the other is two-step method, i.e. prepolymer method.
Typical two-step method.
(1) Prepolymer synthesis basic formula
Polyether polyol 0-100
Small molecule polyol 0-10
Catalyst 0.2-0.6
TDI 20-50 (HDI, IPDI, HMDI, etc. can be used for non-yellowing)
NCO% 3-14%
The production process of non-yellowing seafoam flexible foam
At present, the bulk of polyurethane flexible foam (sponge) is prone to yellowing, and the yellowing-resistant foam nowadays usually refers to the addition of antioxidants, heat stabilizers and light stabilizers in the production of foam, which can temporarily alleviate the speed of yellowing of foam; easy yellowing is mainly because the benzene ring on the isocyanate can be gradually oxidized into a quinone-type structure and yellow, and the foam macromolecular chain contains carbonyl, amino, azo, alkenyl, etc. Azo group, alkenyl group and other color-emitting groups, when the light into the selective absorption, and emit a certain wavelength of light, resulting in a certain degree of soft foam yellowing.
Effective solutions for yellowing
One of the effective solutions is to use aliphatic isocyanates that do not turn yellow for foam, aliphatic isocyanates, such as IPDI, HDI and HMDI, etc. The ammonia ester bond formed by these isocyanates is more stable, and even if it is decomposed into aliphatic amines, there is no benzene ring conjugate structure, so it will not form color-assisting groups, and the aliphatic amines themselves are not easy to be oxidized, so it is not easy to cause yellowing; therefore, the choice of aliphatic Therefore, the choice of aliphatic isocyanate can significantly reduce the yellowing of foam.
Technical difficulties of aliphatic isocyanate foaming
In fact, many people have tried to produce foam in this area for many years, but most of them have encountered more or less some technical difficulties, that is, aliphatic isocyanates are generally low in activity, the foaming process is difficult to control, the operating range or tolerance is very narrow, it is difficult to make soft foam that meets the requirements, the problems that often occur in the foaming process are: collapse of foam or local collapse of foam, coarse foam, surface chalking Or will close the hole, more serious block bubble shrinkage.
It should be noted here is the use of aliphatic isocyanate foam made of foam sponge actually is not never yellow at all, but in the long-term light, water, heat conditions will also be very slowly oxidation yellowing, but the yellowing speed of this type of foam is very low, as if to people’s feeling does not seem to yellow.
Foaming process
Different people or regions, the foaming process method may be different, mainly the formula, catalyst selection and dosage is not the same, this method is not the only, for reference only.
Highly active polyether and other additives pre-mixed at room temperature, then pour into IPDI stirring 6-15 seconds evenly after pouring into the preheated foaming box, good is not less than 30 ℃ oven insulation and foaming, 20-30 minutes after the block of bubbles will be pushed out and can be cut by room temperature maturation 24 hours. The bubble hole is uniform and fine, high strength, good elasticity, will not be chalked, generally will not shrink, trace shrinkage need to lightly press a little can. Need to be especially reminded not to use grafted polyether polyol.
The production process of microporous soft foam material
1、The application of microporous soft foam
It should be noted here that microporous foam does not refer to microporous PU elastomer (such as shoe soles, insoles, high speed rail gaskets, tires, car springs and other foams), but a soft high density polyurethane foam sheet, which is a special polyurethane soft foam. This kind of polyurethane soft foam sheet has been widely used in communication, computer, household appliances, digital products, other electronic products, shoe materials, medical equipment, hardware, etc. as sealing, shock absorption and cushioning materials.
2、Outstanding performance
High sealing, high energy absorption (high cushioning), high dimensional stability. Excellent resistance to compression deformation, water resistance, high temperature resistance, aging resistance, environmental protection without pollution, etc.
3、Basic molding process
This foaming process is different from the ordinary water chemical foaming or ordinary physical foaming agent (such as methylene chloride, etc.) foaming process, but the permanent gas injection foaming method, the basic production process using multi-component low-pressure mechanical pouring on the conveyor belt release paper and continuous scraping into uniform thickness and then by the drying channel constant temperature gel curing molding, the product into a roll and then after maturation and become; unique foaming process determines the The unique foaming process determines the outstanding performance of the material.
Highlights of the technology.
Organometallic salts catalyst suitable to control the reaction speed.
Strict temperature control is also an important factor in controlling product quality.
As one of the world’s six most popular synthetic materials, the polyurethane industry has expanded rapidly in recent years. According to the “2016-2022 China Polyurethane Industry Market Trend Forecast and Trend Forecast Research Report” published by Booz Data: the global production of polyurethane products has exceeded 21 million tons, of which foam system and non-foam system products each account for half of the total, and its huge growth potential is of great concern.
The trend of production scale is obvious In terms of production, the polyurethane industry, like most chemical industries, has an increasingly obvious trend of intensification and scale. As polyurethane production technology becomes more mature, products become more popular and application fields expand, manufacturers find that they must have certain scale benefits in order to maintain a certain level of profitability. As a result, new companies are becoming larger and larger, and production capacity is rapidly increasing.
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