New High Resilience Slabstock Technologies Based on High Performance Polyols

The Dow Chemical Company has developed a new proprietary technology that makes it possible to produce high molecular weight polyether polyols with reduced by-products. This paper reviews the use of this new generation of High Performance Polyols (HPPs) in the flexible slabstock field. It demonstrates how they make it possible to significantly expand the quality and grade versatility of the current all-water blown High Resilience (HR) technologies. In the TDI field, it was shown that the morphology of the polymer plays a key role. The absence of the polyurea precipitates explains the extreme softness achievable even at very high water levels. In these formulations, foams based on High Performance Polyols feature very high physical properties as expressed by comfort factor, resilience and fatigue properties. Enhanced mechanical properties make it possible to use HPPs over a wider range of isocyanate indices which increases the overall versatility of the system. They also help to reduce foam discoloration that is often observed at low density in the presence of liquid flame retardants. In the MDI field, HPPs also allow a certain level of physical property improvement of foams. Using polyols of various molecular weights, the fell of the foam can be improved to get even closer to latex foams. The use of a new parameter, the Comfort Aspect (CA) is described to express numerically the improvement in the foam touch.