"In the footwear field, a series of thermoplastic polyurethanes and conventional microcellular polyurethanes have been developed incorporating increased content of biorenewable materials while maintaining the performance characteristics needed." Rosenvasser's presentation detailed the properties and performance of several new footwear polyurethane materials that incorporate biorenewable content.

"Every year, we see more innovative technologies from the polyurethanes industry addressing the need in the footwear market for process and performance improvements," said the American Chemistry Council's Steve Russell, Vice President, Plastics Division.

This year's Sports and Athletic Footwear technical session opened with a presentation by BayOne Urethane Systems LLC and Robbins Sport Surfaces describing an innovative urethane flooring surface for gymnasiums that incorporates both recycled content and renewable resource raw materials. Limei Lu of BASF Corporation revealed the development of several soft grades of TPU, including non-plasticised materials, as well as a series of new TPUs made from renewable-content polyols and traditional MDI.

Bjoern Dormann of Desma GmbH described a new, highly automated production line for athletic footwear, which could eliminate many time-consuming manual steps currently in practice around the world. Steve Lee of Steve Lee Associates followed up on this topic, closing the session with an insightful discussion on the trend toward automated production of polyurethane footwear.