Successful International FSK Symposium Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes 2022

As part of this year’s 21st International Specialist Conference on Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes, the FSK celebrated its 60th anniversary with technical presentations, a panel discussion, a ceremonial Innovation Award and a company tour at Atlas ® the shoe company.       

Stuttgart, 20 September 2022 – In September, the 21st International Conference on Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes of the German Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes Association (FSK) took place in Dortmund. During the pre-event get-together, the association celebrated its 60th anniversary to the day. The festive conference venue was only a stone’s throw away from the large Signal Iduna Park with a dignified evening event in the bridal tower of the Dortmund U and an impressive view of the city.

The first day of the conference was dedicated to the major, hot topics of sustainability and the circular economy. After the opening by FSK Chairman Albrecht Manderscheid, Cannon Deutschland GmbH, Eric Rehbock, Chief Executive of bvse – Bundesverband Sekundärrohstoffe und Entsorgung e.V. (Federal Association for Secondary Raw Materials and Waste Disposal), reported in his keynote address on the major challenges of his members – the now 1000 medium-sized recycling and sorting companies – in the current economic environment. Thomas Ross from Sekisui Alveo GmbH presented polyolefin foams in his technical lecture on the topic of circular economy and presented approaches that Sekisui Alveo is pursuing in order to achieve sustainable management.

Dr. Oliver Möllenstädt from the Gesamtverband Kunststoffverarbeitende Industrie e.V. (GKV) gave a spontaneous presentation with a report on the current topics in the GKV, which also affect the FSK as a supporting association. He emphasised the importance and scope of the association’s work, for example in the critical questioning of a force majeure, a common position in the dialogue with politics or also for the education of consumers. For this purpose, he presented the initiative “We are plastics” as an effective medium. Another major challenge for the industry these days, he said, is above all the rising electricity and energy prices.

In her keynote speech “Sustainability: Using Resources and Shaping the Future”, Anna-Katharina De Rosis, PLIXXENT Holding GmbH, summarised the challenges of recycling in the PUR industry.

Directly afterwards, a group of experts from the recycling industry consisting of Dr Thomas Hillebrand, PDR Recycling GmbH + Co KG, Dr Thomas Probst, bvse – Bundesverband Sekundärrohstoffe und Entsorgung e.V. and Mr Marco Werth, RAMPF Eco Solutions GmbH & Co. KG, addressed the topic of “Circular Economy – Newly Sorted?” in a panel discussion. Different challenges for the industry were addressed. Sustainability is a megatrend in the industry. But SMEs and small and medium-sized businesses were still reluctant to embrace it. The difficulty would be in the separate and “clean” recycling of used polyurethane (PU) materials such as mattresses or PU insulation boards. In order to generate a sufficient amount of suitable input material for a recycling plant, the cooperation of different producers, who as such are competitors, would be necessary for the joint utilisation of a plant. From an antitrust point of view, this is possible and often necessary for the expansion of the recycling economy.

It is also a fact that PUs in connection with plastics are not yet in the focus of public discussion. But customers are already demanding concepts and solutions. The industry therefore still has a small window of opportunity to position itself and PU vis-à-vis this discussion. This requires credible solutions for post-industrial PU residues and for post-consumer PU waste.

Jörg Arntzen, Dow Anlagengesellschaft and member of the FSK board, acted as moderator throughout the event.

The afternoon was then dominated by the ceremony for the Innovation Award Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes 2022, presented by Udo J. Storck, MASTERFOAM GmbH, spokesman of the FSK Converter Network specialist group. Companies, students, interested parties – in short: all innovators – were able to apply for the popular award in various categories. This year, the title among the many great innovations was earned by a soft bathing lounge made of pure foam from the company Clavis, the SAHEL project with a PUR sandwich heliostat for solar thermal energy from the company Covestro, and the high-quality lightweight pallets based on foamed biopolymers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT).

The second day of the event started with the topic of artificial intelligence in the PU industry. Michael Stöhr, Albrecht Bäumer GmbH & Co. KG, showed that it can be quite a balancing act to make sensible and individual use of the data generated in abundance by the machines for the individual companies and presented approaches to solutions such as those offered by the Sophie platform. In line with this, David Haferkorn from Symate GmbH presented a system that also records and evaluates external influences and makes personnel analyses and manual adjustments superfluous – a procedure that has entered the PU industry and has long been understood as a competitive factor.

The presentation by Tom Berckmans of Cardolite Specialty Chemicals Europe N.V. on the improved thermal and mechanical properties and flame resistance of PU foams with non-edible cashew nut oil as an ingredient also attracted a lot of attention from the audience.

The “Influence of bio-based raw materials on the CO2 cycle” was explained by Dr René Manski, HOBUM Oleochemicals GmbH, who urged that food and biomass use should always be in harmony and not in competition.

The demonstration of “Solutions for processing graphite as a flame retardant in a high-pressure process” in a film during the presentation by Stefano Andreolli of Cannon Afros S.p.A. created an impressed murmur among the participants of the symposium.  Andreolli convincingly presented areas of application and advantages of the use of materials, especially against the background of strict safety requirements.

The series of lectures ended with an interim report on the REACH diisocyanate training courses by Nilüfer Bozkurt-Thielscher, FSK Services GmbH, and Klaus Junginger, FSK e.V. They reported on the training projects of the last twelve months and concluded with a résumé of how FSK Services GmbH identifies and addresses the needs and demands of small and medium-sized companies in order to support them in the implementation of the legal training obligation.

Finally, the two-day 21st International FSK Symposium on Foam Plastics and Polyurethanes ended with a visit to ATLAS® – the shoe company. The guided tour through the production and storage halls offered the participants insights into the production of safety shoes. “The tours are always a highlight and a varied conclusion to our conferences,” says Klaus Junginger. “We are pleased that our partners support us here, invite us to their factory and give us great insights. That is by no means a matter of course!” The contact to the company had been established by Dr. W. Alexander Strietholt, who was active in the association for a long time as spokesman of the PUR specialist group and who retired during the conference.