Cargill receives award for green polyol

Minneapolis, Minn.-based Cargill Inc. has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for an innovation that is being used as the building block in a Canadian company’s polyurethane foam.

Cargill received the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for its BiOH polyol. BiOH, which is used in the production of polyurethane foams, is produced by refining oil derived from soybeans.

The polyol is a key component in Woodbridge, Ont.-based The Woodbridge Group‘s BioFoam plant-based polyurethane products. BioFoam products now provide up to 25 per cent bio-based content, and Woodbridge has recently announced that laboratory trials have achieved 100 per cent bio-polyol substitution.

“Woodbridge and Cargill have partnered extensively for quite some time, to offer an environmentally improved alternative for automotive foams derived from various biological sources,” said Woodbridge’s vice president of technology Dave Miller.

Miller also noted that Cargill’s BiOH addresses some of the issues with previous incarnations of bio-polyols, such as odour and reactivity.

According to Woodbridge, the BioFoam products offer the highest green content levels available for each product performance category.

The BioFoam products meet all required product performance criteria, and are currently going through select customer validation and approval processes.