Flexible Polymer Foam Market

Polymer foams are found almost everywhere in today’s modernized world, they have their presence in nearly all end use industries. Polymers have a wide range of applications in several industries and institutes, for commercial as well as domestic purposes.

Flexible polymer foam is generally a mixture of solid phase (present in the form of fillers) and gaseous phase (generally known as a blowing agent). Flexible polymer foams have significant mechanical and physical properties, such as good heat and sound insulation, and the ability to absorb energy, which make them beneficial in packaging and cushioning applications, as compared to solid polymers. A small amount of polymer mass is required to gain maximum volume, due to cellular structure that traps the gas within itself. Flexible polymeric foams can be prepared in any form and shape, such as boards, blocks, slabs, molded shapes or in composite forms, such as metal, fabric, wood, papers, etc.

Flexible polymer foams can be divided into thermosets or thermoplastics, which are further divided into flexible and rigid foam. Wherein thermoplastics can usually be broken down and recycled, and thermosets are relatively hard to recycle, because they are usually heavily cross-linked to each other.