Each year, more than two million tons of polyurethane is produced in the EU by reacting isocyanates with polyols made from fossil fuel. In addition, there are appreciable quantities of petroleum based functional additives applied in the industry nowadays for both polyols and polyurethane materials. It is therefore of key importance to develop sustainable economically viable polyols with enhanced functionalities, and thereby reducing...

For over three decades polyurethanes (PUR or PU) have been reported for application in a variety of medical devices. These polymers consist of hard and soft segments, which allow for more subtle control of their structure and properties. By varying the composition of the different segments, properties of PURcan be tuned up for use in many areas of medicine. Recently there is a great interest in modification of biomedical PUR with...

This paper is a literature overview of biomedical PUR modifications with natural polymers such as starch, cellulose and gelatin. Properties like biodegradability and biocompatibility of modified PUR cause that these materials may be used as wound dressings, tissue scaffolds, tissue implants and also vascular grafts.

The polyol is a major component in polyurethane formulations and therefore introducing to the formulation recycled polyol (obtained during decomposition process) allows decreasing the usage of pure petrochemical components. In this work, thermoplastic polyurethanes were prepared using various mixtures of a petrochemical macrodiol poly(ethylene-butylene adipate)diol (PEBA) and a recycled glycolysate intermediate, called glycolysate...