Evonik converts PU additives stabilizer portfolio to sustainable low VOC formulations

Essen, Germany. Evonik, the leading solutions provider to the polyurethane (PU) industry has announced that it has converted its entire silicone surfactants portfolio available in Europe, to only include low cyclics or low VOC-based (volatile organic compounds) products.

Having set the industry standard for almost two decades after first optimizing its TEGOSTAB® silicone surfactants to minimize cyclic siloxane content in 2003, Evonik has continuously enhanced its portfolio to meet the highest global regulatory and sustainability demands. Evonik continues to surpass these standards in order to fulfil its customers’ demands and expectations. Today, most of its globally available surfactants only contain levels far below the required 0.1% for each cyclic siloxane species in the finished PU foam products.

Cyclic siloxanes are essential building blocks for siloxane polymers, which are used as silicone surfactants in the PU foam industry. These surfactants are key for stabilizing PU foams for the construction, automotive and appliance industries and promote for example, energy efficiency in insulation applications.

“Lowering the cyclic silicones content meets increasing consumer needs for healthier, safer and more environmentally friendly products,” said Ralph Marquardt, Head of Evonik’s PU business. “With our market insights and first-class innovation capabilities, we were the first in the PU industry to optimize our silicone surfactant formulations to be more sustainable, often exceeding today’s strict VOC regulatory standards.”

Evonik offers the broadest silicone surfactants portfolio to customers across the entire PU industry value chain. Evonik’s surfactants comply with the highest safety and environmental standards, which is demonstrated by the award of the industry’s main certifications and labels such as CertiPUR, LGA, pure life or IOS Mat 0010 from IKEA. Furthermore, Evonik conducts regular “Life Cycle Analyses” for several of its surfactants and supports its partners and customers with training to help improve the sustainability of their PU foam production processes.

“We work closely with our customers, so we continually stay abreast of the latest trends and issues impacting all of our markets. This enables us to proactively develop innovative and sustainable solutions to answer changing market demands and regulations. In doing so, we are helping our customers to ensure safe and compliant foam production and high-quality final products,” adds Marquardt.

Evonik Comfort & Insulation is also one of the world's leading suppliers of the catalysts and processing additives needed to help foam producers efficiently manufacture high-performance, low VOC polyurethane-based foams and products. In addition to surfactants and catalysts, Evonik’s broad additives toolbox also includes curatives, performance additives and release agents. These can be found under market leading brand names such as DABCO®, GORAPUR®, ORTEGOL®, POLYCAT®, TEGOSTAB® and VERSALINK®.

For more details please visit our

• digital customer portal “ExplorePU”
• LinkedIn channel “Evonik Polyuretane Additives”