idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
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idw - Informationsdienst
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Rigid polyurethane foams are among the most important materials for thermal insulation in buildings and for insulation in household appliances such as refrigerators. However, at the end of their service life, the only options available to date have been incineration or landfill – a loss of valuable raw materials and a burden on the climate. This challenge was addressed by the European research project ‘CIRCULAR FOAM – Systemic expansion of territorial CIRCULAR Ecosystems for end-of-life FOAM’.
In mid-September 2025, the final conference took place in Brussels, where the results were presented and discussed with representatives from politics, science and industry.
CIRCULAR FOAM was funded from October 2021 to September 2025 as part of European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. More than twenty partners from eight European countries worked together on solutions in the project consortium. Companies from the chemical and waste management industries, universities and research institutes, as well as public institutions, were involved under the coordination of Covestro Deutschland AG.
The partners investigated how a systemic recycling system for polyurethane (PU) rigid foams can be achieved. Several questions were considered: How can foams from construction waste and old appliances be efficiently recovered? Which technologies are suitable for processing the complex composite materials? And how can digital tools create transparency about material flows?
The results of the project are wide-ranging. The focus was on the further development of new chemical recycling processes. Using ‘smart pyrolysis’, it was possible to recover key components such as amine from used PU rigid foams. These substances were successfully tested for reuse in refrigerators and used as an equivalent alternative to fossil raw materials. This demonstrated that a closed loop for these materials is technically feasible.
Important progress was also made in digitalisation. Digital product passports were developed as a tool that makes information about material compositions available along the entire value chain while protecting sensitive company data. Initial applications showed how these passports specifically support collection, sorting and recycling.
In addition, regional stakeholders from industry, research and administration were integrated and networked in the three model regions of North Rhine-Westphalia, Silesia and Amsterdam. The regions are at different stages of transformation. This helps to identify sustainable transformation paths and strategies for a regional circular economy that are flexible and comprehensive enough to transfer the findings to other regions in Europe.
In CIRCULAR FOAM, a systemic approach was used to analyse and optimise all steps involved in recycling PU rigid foams, from recovery from refrigerators and collection of construction waste to chemical recycling. The overall structure of the system was optimised by selecting the number, locations and sizes of the plants for the various steps in order to minimise costs.
Life cycle analyses ultimately demonstrated that the approaches developed can avoid CO₂ emissions in the long term and save considerable disposal costs. CIRCULAR FOAM thus impressively demonstrates how technological innovation, digital solutions and regional cooperation can work together to enable a true circular economy for PU rigid foams.
Project Partner
In order to develop innovative solutions for the circular use of rigid polyurethane foams within the framework of CIRCULAR FOAM, the companies Covestro Deutschland AG (Germany), PTS ALBA (Poland), BioBTX (Netherlands), Circularise (Netherlands), Electrolux Italia S.p.A. (Italy), Interzero (Germany), IZNAB (Poland), Kingspan (Ireland), REDWAVE (Austria), Sulzer (Switzerland) and Unilin Insulation (Belgium) got involved. Scientific expertise was provided by renowned universities: ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), Ruhr University Bochum, RWTH Aachen University, TU Dortmund University, University of Groningen (Netherlands) and Wrocław University of Economics and Business (Poland). In addition, important research institutes and networks strengthened the consortium, including Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (Netherlands), DECHEMA Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology e.V. (Germany), the Euro-Centrum Science and Technology Park (Poland), the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT (Germany), the Jülich Research Centre (Germany), the Metropole GZM (Poland) and the Centre for Advisory Systems in Technology, Dortmund ZEDO e.V. (Germany).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101036854
https://www.circular-foam.eu - further information, in-depth materials and five accompanying image films on the activities and results of the project
Circular Foam - Final Conference in Brussels
Copyright: Dechema / Photo by Sam Glazier
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