Katsumi Inaoka

Low Resilience Polyurethane Slabstock Foam with Microphase Separated Morphology

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the nature of the low resilience foam with microphase separated morphology. Takeda has developed a unique homogeneous polyol mixture, which provides a low resilience foam with two glass transition temperatures. The existence of two tan 8 peaks, a glass transition and P glass transition around -40°C and room temperature, respectively, indicates the presence of the microphase separation. The chemical structure and the reactivity of the homogeneous polyol is well designed for the simultaneous formation of the heterogeneous morphology during the blowing process. The newly developed foam did not increase its hardness in the range of 0 to -20°C and did not become glassy even at -20°C; the storage modulus curve has a plateau region around -10°C. The a glass transition temperature was sensitive to the formulation factors, polyol ratio, water level, index and plasticizer, whereas the f glass transition temperature is less sensitive to those factors.