2018 Volume 39 Issue 1 Pages 41-47
Polyurethanes developed by Dr. Otto Bayer of Germany IG. Farben Company in 1937 has been widely used industrially since 1950 because of its excellent properties and ease of handling. In the field of architecture and construction, the newly developed polyurethane supports the evolution of the architectural style, especially the application for sealing, waterproofing and heat insulating materials has greatly expanded. Polyurethane for waterproof material that appeared in 1966 made waterproof material with thickness of 2 mm or more spread to the world instead of a thin film thickness paint, and greatly improved the reliability of paint waterproofing.1) As for polyurethane for heat insulating materials, improvement of heat insulating performance was a major issue, but in 1987 the problem of ozone layer destruction by chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) used as a blowing agent was shown. After that, consideration to the environment as well as improvement of heat insulating performance has become a big problem. Recently, in addition to performance improvement and environmental consideration, the issues of extending the life expectancy of social infrastructure is mentioned as a problem. In the field of architecture and constructions, product specifications tailored to the climate of each country are often applied, and this time, focusing on the Japanese market, the technical trends of polyurethane developed to respond to these issues are summarized.
