Issue 3, 2024

Recycling of polyurethanes: where we are and where we are going

Abstract

Polyurethanes (PUs) represent a family of useful synthetic polymers (thermoplastic or thermosetting) obtained from diisocyanates and diols/polyols via polycondensation reactions. Within the circular economy concept and also considering the current need for limiting the environmental impact of plastics, several methods have been designed, assessed, and exploited for the recovery at the end-of-life of polyurethanes and for their recycling. Indeed, the processing of polyurethane wastes can be significantly beneficial not only from an ecological but also from an economic point of view. At present, feedstock (namely, glycolysis) and mechanical recycling are the two most important strategies to recover and recycle polyurethanes; notwithstanding, “biological recycling”, an approach that exploits the biological degradation of the polymer, is gaining interest. This review aims to elucidate the recycling processes of both thermoplastic and thermosetting polyurethanes, providing the reader with some perspectives about their possible future developments.

Graphical abstract: Recycling of polyurethanes: where we are and where we are going

Article information

Article type
Tutorial Review
Submitted
13 jún. 2023
Accepted
05 des. 2023
First published
19 des. 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Green Chem., 2024,26, 1132-1152

Recycling of polyurethanes: where we are and where we are going

G. Rossignolo, G. Malucelli and A. Lorenzetti, Green Chem., 2024, 26, 1132 DOI: 10.1039/D3GC02091F

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements