Exceptional sorption capacity of polyurethane (PU) foam attracted widespread attention of oil spill professionals a long time ago. Referring to the most popular in oil spill cleanup literature we found:
“Polyurethane is the most effective sorbent that can be used for oil spill cleanup, and efficiently recovers oils with a wide range of viscosities”
(Fingas, M. The Basics of Oil Spill Cleanup. Lewis publishers, p. 223);
“Polyurethane foams show the highest recovery efficiency quite independent of oil viscosity” (Doerffer , J.W. Oil Spill Response in the Marine Environment . Pergamon Press, p.
94.);
“Polyurethane foams show the highest performance of common absorbent materials (Cormack, D. Response to Marine Oil Pollution – Review and Assessment. Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 261).
In actual practice no PU foams were used in oil spill cleanup in large scale, since open cell flexible foams absorb water along with oil, and closed cell rigid foams absorb almost nothing.
Inkas-Sorb® MPU became the first oil absorbent product made from PU foam waste, which is successfully used in oil spill cleanup industry in Europe, North America and Africa.
Having strong affinity to hydrocarbons, it absorbs all range of known oil and oil based products. Being highly hydrophobic it repels water and able to float on water indefinitely before and after absorbing oil. Possessing high heat content in compare with known combustible materials it is a valuable fuel for incineration with energy recovery.