In recent years, the demand and development of renewable source polyols has grown exponentially. As this field grows in terms of products and technology available, polyol manufacturers will have to work with formulators of Polyurethane Rigid Pour-in-Place Foam systems to continue to produce high quality foam systems. Although the high renewable content is appealing to many, any new system developed must still meet quality standards of today’s established foams with lower amounts of renewable content polyols. These quality standards can be physical properties such as thermal aging and percent closed cell content or processing properties such as foam flowability and shelf life.

In this paper, the work between FSI and Emery Oleochemicals LLC in the development of a polyurethane rigid pour-in-place foam will be discussed. This includes a stepwise process of how both companies were able to work together to create a foam using 100% Emery Emerox renewable source polyols and 100% ecomate (VOC free, zero ODP, low GWP) blowing agent. There were some obstacles that needed to be overcome, and by working together, FSI and Emery Oleochemicals were able to work past them.

Testing performed on the end product demonstrated that the foam had good flowability, good dimensional stability and excellent compression strength among other properties. In summary, the value of cooperation of FSI and Emery Oleochemicals was demonstrated when two companies work together toward the same end goal.