Synthesis of polyurethane foam from ultrasonically decrosslinked automotive seat cushions.

In this study, we have investigated the recycling of flexible polyurethane foam (PUF) using an ultrasonic reactor. Waste PUF of automotive seat cushions were subjected to ultrasonic horn oscillation of various amplitudes at different flow rate. Successful decrosslinking of ultrasonically treated waste PUF was confirmed by thorough characterizations such as gel fraction, crosslink density, and thermal property. Decrosslinked PUFs were blended with the virgin PUF in various proportions to prepare the recrosslinked PUFs. Automotive seat cushions made of the blended PUFs exhibit enhanced comfort than that of the virgin PUFs by lowering the hardness and hysteresis loss and increasing the sag factor.