Flexible polyurethane foams have many applications, mainly in furniture and automotive industry. The main advantage of these materials is their low density and possibility to control some parameters e.g. hardness, density or flexibility. The main disadvantage of flexible polyurethane foams is high flammability and high value of toxic fumes which evolved during combustion. This contributes to the high number of deaths during the fires. For this reason some researches are conducted in order to obtain flexible polyurethane foams with lower flammability and lower amount of toxic fumes.

In these studies carbon nanotubes were used to modify properties of flexible polyurethane foams. The amount of the filler added to the polyurethane matrix was 0.25% wt. The characterization of the foams has been carried out using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Also density, hardness, flexibility, irreversible strain and linear flammability tests were done. It has been found that using carbon nanotubes could be an effective way to reduce flammability and improve thermal stability of flexible polyurethane foams.

This research is funded from the National Center of Research and Development as a grant no. R15 0024 N 06/2009

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