Polyols

Polymer polyols for the manufacturing of high load bearing foams. Dow’s range of products includes reactive polyols suitable for high resilience foam production and non-reactive polyols suitable for standard foams. Our VORAGUARD™ polyols also offer halogen-free and styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) free solutions designed specifically to obtain ultra-low emission combustion modified high resilience foams (CMHR).   

Dow’s range of cell openers are designed to manufacture soft, high resilience and Hypersoft foams. Highly efficient, these ethylene oxide (EO) rich cell openers enable substantial softening in conventional foams even at low levels, while also improving curing in Hypersoft foams.

Dow’s range of polyols for flex molded applications feature high reactivity to promote foam curing, and lower antioxidant stabilization to help obtaining low emission foams. These polyols can be used in the production of high-resiliency, flexible molded foams used in automotive seating, office and domestic furniture. 

With a broad portfolio of polyether polyols for CASE applications, Dow offers a broad spectrum of molecular weights ranging from 450 to 8000 g/mol. Dow’s low molecular weight polyols are produced by KOH catalysis, while the higher molecular weights are achieved by DMC catalysis, reducing the amount of unsaturated monofunctional by-products. 

Dow’s rigid polyols are characterized by higher functionalities at lower molecular weights for increased crosslinking. They have predominantly secondary hydroxyl groups. These rigid polyols can be used in foamed and cast applications or in combination with polyols with a higher molecular weight to increase hardness of the final product. 

Dow’s amine-based polyols are designed to be autocatalytic. They require less catalyst to achieve the same reactivity, helping reduce emissions from volatile catalysts and improve curing for better processing and article green strength. Typical applications include flexible and rigid foams as well as castings.