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Review
. 2020 Aug 5;12(8):1752.
doi: 10.3390/polym12081752.

Polyurethane Recycling and Disposal: Methods and Prospects

Aleksandra Kemona  1 , Małgorzata Piotrowska  1
Affiliations
Review

Polyurethane Recycling and Disposal: Methods and Prospects

Aleksandra Kemona et al. Polymers (Basel). .

Abstract

Growing water and land pollution, the possibility of exhaustion of raw materials and resistance of plastics to physical and chemical factors results in increasing importance of synthetic polymers waste recycling, recovery and environmentally friendly ways of disposal. Polyurethanes (PU) are a family of versatile synthetic polymers with highly diverse applications. They are class of polymers derived from the condensation of polyisocyanates and polyalcohols. This paper reports the latest developments in the field of polyurethane disposal, recycling and recovery. Various methods tested and applied in recent years have proven that the processing of PU waste can be economically and ecologically beneficial. At the moment mechanical recycling and glycolysis are the most important ones. Polyurethanes' biological degradation is highly promising for both post-consumer and postproduction waste. It can also be applied in bioremediation of water and soil contaminated with polyurethanes. Another possibility for biological methods is the synthesis of PU materials sensitive to biological degradation. In conclusion, a high diversity of polyurethane waste types and derivation results in demand for a wide range of methods of processing. Furthermore, already existing ones appear to be enough to state that the elimination of not reprocessed polyurethane waste in the future is possible.

Keywords: chemical degradation; energy recovery; enzymatic degradation; microbial degradation; polyurethane; polyurethane modification; recycling.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Market share of different types of polyurethane products.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Polyurethane synthesis reaction example.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Ladder of Lansink.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Polyurethane hydrolysis.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Polyurethane aminolysis.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Polyurethane phosphorolysis.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Hydrolysis of ester and polyurethane by esterase.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Hydrolysis of polyurethane by urease.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Hydrolysis of polyurethane and peptide by protease/amidase.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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