Polyurethane is one of the polymeric materials most used in the finished products in our daily lives. Its global production grew by 5,9% during 2015 to reach 21 million tonnes of finished product. There is no doubt about the positive impact that the polyurethane industry has in the European economy throughout its entire chain: chemical producers, customers, suppliers, final producers, etc.
Specifically, the polyurethane elastomers sector contributes to the European economy hugely, just after PU for construction. Currently and in our case, a third of our annual turnover and half of our customers are related to PU elastomers. Through this project we wish to validate this new generation of sustainable polyurethanes on an industrial scale successfully, meeting the technical requirements, with a high hydrolysis resistance and taking advantage of this huge market opportunity. This project represents a double advantage: improvement of properties without a price increase: a higher hydrolysis resistance, which implies a product with a longer shelf life and meeting the technical requirements; as CO2 is significantly cheaper than conventional petroleum-based raw materials, it does not imply a price increase.
In this sense, we plan to introduce PUFOOTCO2 elastomers by the beginning of 2018. Furthermore, our sales targets are intended to increase our current revenue by 20% in 2020. Once consolidated this market, the prospects could increase since PUFOOTCO2 results may be applied in other sectors as a diverse range of products/application fields and some companies have shown their interest in CO2-polyols/polyurethanes, such as: furniture, automotive, building, construction, etc. Thanks to the versatility of the polyurethane our formulations could be used, for example, in children or sport pavements as binder of crushed rubber tyres.
