Polyurethane conference focuses on 'green'
Visco-elastic foams highlighted
David Perry -- Furniture Today, November 30, 2008
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Color this conference green.
Green chemistry, green marketing, sustainable practices and renewable materials were in the spotlight when the Polyurethanes 2008 Technical Conference came to town here. Green is big and getting bigger, conference speakers declared.
A number of the sessions focused on green developments in the furniture and bedding categories. Advances in “green foams” and visco-elastic foams were highlighted. Even the conference program was swathed in green.
 Speakers at the opening session of the Polyurethanes Technical Conference included Jerry MacCleary, left, Bayer MaterialScience; Neeva-Gayle Candelori, Center for the Polyurethanes Industry; Barry Asmus, National Center for Policy Analysis; and Dave Williams, Honeywell. |
“Polyurethane science is playing an enormous role in assisting the global furniture and bedding industry to deliver the comfortable and durable products their customers demand — with a nod to increasing public interest in eco-friendly products,” said Neeva-Gayle Candelori, director of the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry, the sponsor of the conference.
In his state of the industry address, Jerry MacCleary of Bayer MaterialScience said the polyurethanes industry has the science and technology to lead the nationwide drive toward increasing the use of renewable resources.
“We can lead the charge by focusing on sustainability, imagination and communication,” MacCleary said.
A special issue session, “Smart Business, Smart Marketing: Green Goes Mainstream,” attracted a standing-room-only audience and featured a lively dialogue on the evolution of green marketing and sustainable science. Panelists included Michael DeFranks, director of engineering at Simmons; Richard Engler, program manager of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Green Chemistry program; and Phil Sarnacke, a consultant to the United Soybean Board.
That session, sponsored by Dow, was designed “to address the complex challenges and opportunities of leveraging polyurethane science and technology to create a more sustainable future,” CPI said. It added that “green marketing and sustainable science have rapidly evolved from niche specialties to the mainstream in virtually every consumer and industrial market.”
The next day, the focus was on renewable content, with technical sessions devoted to advances in natural oil polyols (NOPs — an acronym much used during the conference), which enable foam producers to create greener foams. One session spotlighted new NOP developments at Dow, Cargill, BASF, Vertellus Performance Materials and Bayer MaterialScience. The other focused on molecular aspects of NOPs, ranging from methods to measure the renewable content to ecological efficiencies of NOPs.
Other sessions on foam applications included a global overview of the flexible foam industry by IAL Consultants, and a session presented by BASF speakers that addressed the trends in the upholstered furniture industry toward offshore manufacturing and the use of lower-cost materials. “Is comfort taking a back seat in home furnishings?” was the provocative title of that session.
The development in recent years of NOPs is among the most exciting innovations in sustainable polyurethane technology. Producing polyols from natural oils, such as soybeans, rapeseeds, linseed, sunflower seeds and castor oil has increased and been accepted as a viable alternative to hydrocarbon-based materials. While less than 2% of U.S. chemicals are currently derived from crops, the natural oil polyols can offer favorable environmental advantages, economic stability and reduced dependence on natural gas and crude oil, according to CPI.
Natural oil polyols have been commercially available for several years. Due to advances in technology, the natural oil content levels in the NOPs are increasing. Soybean polyols replace only 20% to 25% of conventional polyols, but formulators are working toward substitution levels of 40% to 50%, with the goal of reaching 100% substitution within the next few years, CPI said.
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