The aim of FREEFOAM was to reduce health risk of workers during foam manufacturing by lowering the concentration of free isocyanate and reducing the emission of the same to the atmosphere.
We proposed a unique, homogeneous reactive mixture for PUR foaming purposes where reactants are physically separated by using functionalised microcapsules of isocyanate conveniently dispersed on polyol mixture component. The reactive system allow increasing the mixture reactivity due to the performed compatibility and hence, homogeneity between isocyanate and polyol components while decreasing the exposure of workers to harmful emissions by lowering the residual monomer content on the foam, avoiding the emissions and migration of such components from foams. In addition, the used solution allow decreasing the generated waste due to bad cell homogeneity and product density as consequence of bad mixing process.
VIDEO about the FreeFOAM project.