Polyurethane Foam Association Spring Meeting

Polyurethane Foam Association Spring Meeting Focuses On Industry Challenges, New Opportunities For Flexible Foam

ST. PETERSBURG, FL (June 5, 2023)— At the Polyurethane Foam Association’s (PFA) recent Spring meeting in St. Petersburg, the association covered a spectrum of issues impacting the flexible polyurethane foam industry, along with looking at innovations that promise improvements in foam production, quality, and sustainability.

Record attendance saw more than 165 sales and marketing professionals, EHS specialists, technologists, entrepreneurs and C-suite executives join together for meetings, networking sessions, and presentations covering everything from the newest antioxidants to ways in which artificial intelligence may affect the industry.

PFA’s Industry Issues Session covered trends in key market segments, including commercial furniture, automotive, carpet cushion, and more. Other presentations addressed legal and regulatory issues, isocyanates, technical trends, sustainability and supply chain solutions such as nearshoring.

In the Technical Program on the following day, technical papers covered achievements in microbial control, alternative antioxidants, standards for measuring VOCs, and producing polyols from CO₂.

Chip Holton of NCFI Polyurethanes, PFA’s President, recognized new PFA members including Ashley Furniture, Sinomax USA, and Hansa-Mixer. He noted that since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, 20 new companies have joined PFA.

“I think this is an indication of our value to the industry,” said Russ Batson, PFA Executive Director. “Since its creation more than 40 years ago, PFA has given the flexible polyurethane foam industry a more authoritative, more effective voice to represent itself to regulators, NGOs, consumers, and other key audiences. Members have proven that by working together, they can accomplish more than trying to confronting industry challenges on their own.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Balaji Padmanabhan of the University of South Florida provided an overview of Artificial Intelligence and how A.I. is likely to impact the business world in the next several years. Dr. Padmanabhan’s recounted the progress of his field from machine learning, to “traditional” A.I. to the “generative” A.I. currently receiving attention from the media and among investors. He explained that generative A.I. allows computers to produce texts, images and even musical compositions based on user-given prompts, templates or dialogue.

Liz Manning of Econic Technologies won the Dr. Herman Stone Technical Excellence Award. Her presentation, “Redeeming Carbon: CO2-Based Polyols for Polyurethane Applications,” was voted best by those attending the Technical Program.

The award is named for Dr. Herman T. Stone, a legendary figure in the flexible polyurethane foam industry who passed away earlier this year at the age of 98. He served as PFA’s first Technical Director. Dr. Stone left his mark on almost every aspect of the FPF industry, from lab research, process development, applications research and technological forecasting through regulatory compliance, patents and trademarks, and waste minimization and disposal. He pioneered much of the FPF industry’s flammability research and was a leader and an officer in the PFA and in other industry and national associations. In 2007, Dr. Stone was inducted into the Flexible Polyurethane Foam Hall of Fame.

Beyond his professional work, Dr. Stone spent much time educating young people on the importance of remembering the Holocaust. His own personal story appears in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

“Dr. Stone would have been particularly proud of the quality of the technical presentations this Spring,” noted Bill Gollnitz, Past President of PFA and Moderator for the Technical Program. “In the voting for the Technical Excellence Award (the winner is chosen by the audience in the Technical Session), every presentation received first place votes, and all finished within fractions of a point of each other.”

The Polyurethane Foam Association is a trade association founded in 1980 to help educate foam users, allied industries and other stakeholders. PFA provides facts on environmental, health and safety issues and technical information on the performance of flexible polyurethane foam (FPF) in consumer and industrial products. FPF is used as a key comfort component in most upholstered furniture and mattress products, along with automotive seating, carpet cushion, packaging, and numerous other applications.