Composition-structure-property relationships of commercial polyurethane foams for mattresses

Abstract

Three commercial flexible polyurethane foams used for mattress have been submitted to chemical-physical analyses, water vapor permeability and compression mechanical tests, in order to understand the relationships among their composition, structure, and some functional properties of interest for bedding applications. The results demonstrated that all the three foams have open cell morphology and similar cell structure, with average cell diameters ranging from 430 to 510 micron and wide cell size distribution. As a consequence, they also show comparable water vapor transport behavior. On the contrary, their mechanical response, in terms of hysteresis loss, surface firmness and resistance to bottoming out, was found strongly dependent on their chemical structure and molecular mobility, as inferred from infrared spectroscopy analysis.