Development History of Polyurethane

The development of polyurethane chemistry can be traced back to 1849, when Wurtz and Hoffmann first reported the synthesis reaction of isocyanates. It was not until 1937 that Atto Bayer discovered the industrial use of the above reaction products. The industry began to study polyester based polyurethane. The outbreak of the Second World War and the resulting shortage of materials promoted the development of polyurethane materials, mainly used to produce fiber and coating foams.
After the war, due to the openness of German technology, countries such as the United States and Britain began extensive research and development work. At first, polyurethane foam focused on the work based on polyester, but the cost of polyester polyol was high, and the hydrolysis resistance of polyester soft foam was poor, which affected the promotion and application of polyester soft foam in a broader field. In 1951, it was discovered that polyether polyols were used to synthesize polyurethane. By 1954, DuPont Company in the United States had used tetrahydrofuran to synthesize polyether polyols, which greatly reduced production costs and laid the raw material foundation for the rapid development of polyurethane foam. In 1958, people successively discovered the tertiary amine catalyst triethylenediamine and organic silicon surfactant, which moved the production process of soft foam from two-step method to one-step method. This was an important milestone in the development of soft foam production technology, and from then on, the speed of soft foam production was greatly accelerated. Starting from the 1960s, soft bubbles entered a period of rapid development, and in the 20 years to the 1980s, soft bubbles continued to develop at an average annual growth rate of 18%. In 1981, the global consumption of polyurethane reached 3 million tons, of which soft foam accounted for 60%, about 1.7 million tons. After the 1980s, the growth of polyurethane production entered a mature period, with an average annual growth rate of about 6% in the decade to 1997. In 1997, the world's polyurethane consumption was about 7 million tons, making it the fifth largest plastic variety in terms of production. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Asia Pacific region had the fastest consumption of polyurethane production machines in the world, with an annual growth rate of 11%. In the Asia Pacific region except for Japan, the average annual growth rate of polyurethane was close to 17%. In 2000, the world's polyurethane consumption reached 7.99 million tons, reaching 8.86 million tons in 2002, still maintaining an annual growth rate of over 5%. In 2005, it was 13.75 million tons, and in 2007, it was 14.93 million tons. It is expected that the world's polyurethane consumption will reach 16.9 million tons by 2010.