Nanocomposites and nanomaterials

Bio-based soft polyurethane foams filled with coffee waste
Gryshchuk L.1, Grishchuk S.2, Kote E.2, Minigher A.3, Campaner P.3
1 Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH, Tech. Universität Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße 58, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany 
E-mail: Liudmyla.Gryshchuk@ivw.uni-kl.de
2 Hochschule Kaiserslautern (Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences), University of Groningen, Carl-Schurz-Str. 10-16, 66953 Pirmasens, Germany
3 AEP Polymers SRL, Strada Statale 14, km 163.5, 34149 Basovizza – Trieste, Italy

The large automotive industry has high potential for effective implementation of more efficient use of biomass and industrial by-products for development of bio-based value added products. Among others, special attention should be paid for cellular materials (PUR-foams) being widely used for interior parts, which are at the moment fully petroleum based.
In the present work, commercially available and new-developed bio-polyols were used for development of bio-based soft foam formulations for vehicle interiors. As filler was used coffee waste with different size of particles (120 and 160 μm); after different ways of pre-treatment (washing in different solvents, drying in classical or microwave oven), etc.
Prepared non-filled (as reference) and filled with coffee soft PUR-foams were tested for their density, mechanical properties and hydrophobicity (contact angle measurements). 
The resulted foams showed high potential for application in various automotive applications.

Acknowledgements: This work has been performed under the framework of the ReInvent project (Grant number 792049) funded by the H2020-BBI-JTI-2017 joint undertaking initiative.
Authors thank BASF Personal Care and Nutrition GmbH and Cardolite Corporation for providing the bio-based polyols and Evonik Industries AG for supply with catalysts and additives for PUR-based foams.