Recycling of Automotive Foam/Fabric Laminates by Incorporation into Rebonded Polyurethane Foam

Polyurethane foam waste has for many years been manufactured into rebonded foam for use in energy absorbance applications such as vibration and sound damping, sportsground surfacing and carpet underlay. Recent legislation places more responsibility on manufacturers to recycle rather than landfill polymeric waste and is of major importance for polyurethane components and fabric laminates used in the automotive industry. This work presents an investigation of the incorporation of polyester polyurethane foam and foam/fabric laminates into rebonded foam using a prepolymer based on diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI). Compression and fatigue properties of rebonded foam formed from granulated polyurethane foam bound with prepolymer additions of 1-30% were determined in the density range 50-150 kg m -3 . The effect of incorporating granulated polyurethane foam/fabric laminate recycled from automotive seat covers into the chipfoam was also assessed. Results indicated that the rebonded foam blocks showed similar compression properties independent of prepolymer concentration. However, fatigue testing showed that the block integrity was impaired at low density with low prepolymer concentrations. It was shown that at 150 kg m- 3 , static and fatigue properties of rebonded foam were independent of prepolymer concentration. It was also concluded that block integrity was dependent not only on prepolymer concentration but also the degree of compression in the mould. Studies of the incorporation of automotive foam/fabric laminates into rebonded foam concluded that up to 25% foam by weight could be replaced by laminate without affecting adversely compression or fatigue properties, thereby providing a potentially useful route to recycle automotive laminates.