Polyurethane 101

For the non-technical person, it’s kind of like baking. With the two main ingredients – flour and sugar – you can make a huge variety of foods such as pie crusts, cookies, bread or angel food cake, by adjusting the quantities of flour and sugar and adding other ingredients such as baking soda and seasonings. Or, you can buy premade mixes that already have the right proportions of everything you need. Just mix in the liquids, pour the batter into a mold, or spoon it onto a cookie sheet, heat at a specific temperature for a certain amount of time, and you have a finished product.

• Polyol (POLY) "Sugar"
• Di-isocyanate (ISO) "Flour"
• Additvive "Baking Soda"
• Additive "Seasonings"

A catalyst is used to lower the activation energy required for a reaction to occur thus, increasing the speed of a chemical reaction. While air, water or heat may be enough to trigger the reaction, chemical catalysts may also be used – usually in small amounts.

When baking a cake, you could mix the ingredients and leave them on the counter, but you’ll probably never have a cake. The heat in the oven acts as the catalyst to turn the reactants (ingredients) into the desired product – your cake!