Hans-Georg Pirkl

Polyurethanes: Versatile Materials and Sustainable Problem Solvers for Today’s Challenges

Polyurethanes are the only class of polymers that display thermoplastic, elastomeric, and thermoset behavior depending on their chemical and morphological makeup. In addition to compact polyurethanes, foamed variations in particular are very widespread, and they achieve their targeted properties at very low weights. The simple production of sandwich structures and material composites in a single processing step is a key advantage of polyurethane technology. The requirement of energy and resource efficiency increasingly demands lightweight structures. Polyurethanes can serve this requirement by acting as matrix materials or as flexible adhesives for composites. Polyurethanes are indispensable when it comes to high-quality decorative coatings or maintaining the value of numerous objects. They are extremely adaptable and sustainable problem solvers for todays challenges facing our society, all of which impose special demands on materials.

Trends in industrial catalysis in the polyurethane industry

Catalysis has been an important field for polyurethane chemistry and many improvements have been accomplished in recent years. Some of the greatest challenges however still remain. There is not yet a satisfactory catalytic way for the direct oxidation of propene to propene oxide in spite of ruthless activities by all major players over decades. New methods of catalysts screening and improved tools for catalyst characterization may help to solve this problem in the near future. Catalyst development in the area of polyether synthesis has recently opened new routes to completely new products. New raw materials may become attractive and new polyether polyol structures will be accessible with new catalysts. The range of new polymers will open up new opportunities. In the field of isocyanates the optimization of all manufacturing steps (nitration, hydrogenation, phosgenation) is an ongoing process since commercial production started an incremental improvements are accomplished and implemented constantly. Major improvements for existing processes, including all their catalytic reaction steps, are not to be expected in the near future. Significant improvements seem only possible by alternative ways of isocyanate manufacturing. In this area, catalytic reactions and the modern tools of catalysts research will play a key-role. However, as for all new developments, they will have only a chance on realization on a commercial scale, if they are economically competitive to well established processes.