Polyurethanes in the Construction Industry and the Environment

 TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. INTRODUCTION
2. CHEMICAL PRINCIPLES OF POLYURETHANE SYSTEMS
3. PROPERTIES AND RANGE OF USE OF POLYURETHANES
4. APPLICATION – RISKS WHEN HANDLING
5. POLYURETHANES IN THE ENVIRONMENT – ASPECTS CONCERING SUSTAINABILITY
6. CONCLUSION
7. FURTHER LITERATURE

Polyurethanes were initially developed in Germany in 1937. Since the 1960s, the significance of this universal plastic has grown enormously.

Our lives would be difficult to imagine without polyurethanes. Goods used in daily life such as mattresses, shoe soles, refrigerator insulation and upholstery for furniture are made of this material as well as high-tech medical products, from artifi cial limbs to infusion tubes or technically sophisticated automobile components such as dashboards, car body parts or fenders. You will discover injection moulded parts, fi bres or foams made of polyurethane in just about all areas. The annual production (in tonnes per year) world-wide is in the two-digit million range...