Title: Additives For Improving Natural Oil Based Polyurethane Foam Peformance

 Number/Link: US2013/0065978

Applicant/Assignee: Air Products

Publication date: 14-03-2013

“Gist”: Incorporating a small amount of cyanoguanidine into a NOP-based flexible foam improves airflow and humid ageing.

Why it is interesting: Now that natural oil polyols (NOPs) are becoming mainstream in flexible polyurethane foams (at least in the patent literature), it is to be expected that specific catalysts, surfactants and other additives will be developed for these systems.  Air Products claims to improve air flow and humid ageing properties of NOP-based foams by adding small amounts ( about 0.05 parts per 100 polyol) of solutions (in e.g. DMSO) of guanidine or its derivatives like cyanoguanidine or guanidinehydrochloride salt  to the formulation.  While it is not immediatly clear why this should work, the effect seems to be real.

2-cyanoguanidine