Ecomaison, Covestro, Secondly and Federal Eco Foam launch Foam Recycling project
Ecomaison, a French company focusing on collecting and recycling used furniture, Covestro, French dismantling company Secondly, and Federal Eco Foam, a Belgian specialist in the mechanical recycling of flexible foams, involved in a project aiming to recycle the sorted polyurethane foams by combining mechanical and chemical technologies after careful sorting by foam type in the mattress cutting plants.
The four partners utilize their expertise in the FREE project.
The project is called Foam Recycling Ecosystem Evolution (FREE), which is planned to run for a maximum of 24 months, coordinated by Covestro and half-funded by Ecomaison.
The research and development project includes foam sorting at the dismantling step, as well as a comparative feasibility study for two recycling processes for the sorted foams covering economic and ecologic value co-creation.
Ecomaison has been working with Covestro for a few years to utilize its chemical recycling technology for recycling used furniture. With this advanced process, both raw materials originally used can be recovered, including polyol and the precursor to the isocyanate TDI.
A few years ago, Covestro and its partners developed a chemical recycling process that is one-of-its-kind, capable of ultimately recovering both main raw materials of flexible PU foams in high purity.
The chemolysis of PU mattress foam is the first initiative of Covestro called Evocycle CQ Mattress. The company also operates a pilot plant at the Leverkusen site for this purpose.
