Recent Advances in the Chemical Recycling of Polyurethane Foam from End-of-Life Vehicles: A Review

Flexible polyurethane (PU) foam is the main cushioning material in a modern vehicle interior, filling the seat cushions, headrests, headliners, and acoustic insulation, yet it is among the least recovered fractions of an end-of-life vehicle (ELV). The foam is a crosslinked thermoset and cannot be remelted; poor separation and sorting, compounded by contamination during dismantling and shredding, leave incineration or landfill as the most probable outcome. Two recovery routes are established: mechanical recycling, which reuses the foam in ground or rebonded form, and chemical recycling, which cleaves the urethane linkage to recover the polyol. Most recovery advances have been demonstrated on mattress and industrial scrap foam rather than on automotive foam itself, though studies on genuine automotive foam are beginning to emerge, and glycolysis and acidolysis stand out among the chemical routes as the most promising for this feedstock. This review therefore surveys recent advances in PU foam recycling with a focus on automotive foam and, because direct studies on this feedstock remain few, also assesses how far the wider recycling literature applies to it. Recovered-polyol quality, achievable blend ratios, industrial implementations, and the European regulatory framework are examined.