The “Waterlily” Range of Quality Comfort Materials from Id's MDI-based Flexible Slabstock Technology

The flexible slabstock industry has been increasingly subjected to environmental pressures over the last five years, presenting challenges to seek new technologies. These challenges include the elimination of CFCs, careful scrutiny of alternative blowing agents, and constant tightening of fire ignition standards. ICI Polyurethanes has been at the forefront of MDI cold cure moulding technologies for some years, an area pioneered in the early 1980s. Building on its experience, ICI has developed a technology package for 100 percent water-blown MDI-based system for slabstock foams. Considerable investment in the project has included a production scale foaming unit, with a maximum output of 300 kg/min, and a dedicated project team. Deterioration of physical properties, normally associated with MDI formulations at low densities, has been overcome with the design of novel chemical intermediates, which has also required new formulation development and some equipment modification. The technology package allows a wide range of hardness/density combinations from a small number of raw material components, and produces foams with remarkable stability and fast cure times. This speed, and MDI's low vapour pressure, lead to much-improved working environments. In general, the new foams give a good balance of comfort properties with an excellent latex-like “feel”. Data is shown comparing their performance with that of existing high resilience foams.