Mattresses may be worn out, stained and yellowed after 10 years. But this does not make them worthless. On the contrary: mattresses are made of valuable raw materials, ranging from metals from innerspring mattresses to textile materials and plastics. The latter are particularly critical and interesting at the same time in terms of recycling.

In mattress recycling, special importance is attached to the preparation and reuse of foams. This applies above all to polyurethane (PU) foams. After all, around 65 percent of all mattresses sold are pure foam mattresses. A high proportion of PU foam is also found in mattresses with spring cores. Basically, there are two ways of recovering the polyurethane foam from a mattress that has reached the end of its life: mechanical and chemical recycling.

In a chemical process, the polyurethane waste is broken down. This recovers the polyol originally used for the mattress foam. This so-called secondary polyol can in turn be used for the production of mattresses or other goods such as adhesives, insulation boards, cushions or insulating foams for the construction industry. That is why we have been working with BASF since 2022 on a new process that can be used to return PU foam from mattresses to the product life cycle. With this research activity, we are making an important contribution to the circular economy, as the recycled materials can be used for the production of new mattresses with a significantly lower carbon footprint.

In the course of mechanical processing, the polyurethane waste, for example, is reprocessed into composite foam.

By means of that recycling process developed by BASF, it is possible to produce repolyol which has been completely extracted from old mattresses. At NEVEON, we then process this repolyol into high-quality slabstock foams with 80 percent recycled content in the polyol component, and produce full-size mattresses from it. The production of foams on an industrial scale requires a great deal of know-how and precision, as well as high raw material quality.

In addition to polyols, isocyanates are also necessary for the production of PU foams. Since these are not yet available as recyclates, and the broad commercial availability of repolyols is also still in the future, we at NEVEON have converted two plants for the use of mass-balanced sustainable raw materials. As a result, we now meet the requirements according to the REDcert² certificate and can use certified isocyanates and polyols from BASF's biomass-balanced (BMB) product line, for whose production fossil raw materials have been completely replaced by renewable raw materials. We can therefore already offer foams with a reduced CO2 footprint in large volumes.