Poron Mouse Pad Material Selection and Dynamic Formula Optimization: 20 Years of Technology from the Source Factory

As the source factory for Poron mouse pads with nineteen years of experience, we’ve witnessed the complete journey of Poron polyurethane foam from a niche high-end material to mainstream application.

We understand the crucial role that material selection and formula optimization play in product performance. In Poron mouse pad production, formula adjustments aren’t simply parameter adjustments.

They’re a meticulous experiment that balances material performance, production costs, and environmental requirements.

We must meet the extreme friction coefficient and rebound rate requirements of esports players, manage the price-sensitive costs of office users, and address evolving environmental regulations around the world.

By 2025, with the EU Ecodesign Directive’s mandatory requirement for renewable material content (requiring 30% by 2030) and the deepening implementation of China’s dual-carbon policy, our bio-based polyurethane procurement has increased from 18% in 2023 to 32%.

This shift is the result of over 500 formulation adjustments and 2,000 hours of real-world testing, and is the inevitable result of market demand and technological advancement.

1. Basic Formulation Design: Construction and Practice of a Scenario-Based Parameter Matrix

In selecting Poron materials, we abandoned the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach and established a precise selection system called “parameter matrix – scenario matching.” Each core parameter corresponds to a specific user need scenario.

Take density, for example. This parameter directly impacts a mousepad’s support and comfort. The density of Poron, specifically designed for esports, is strictly controlled between 0.38 and 0.42 g/cm³. This range has been verified by field tests conducted by 12 professional esports teams.

In games like CS:GO and Valorant, which require frequent sudden stops and draws, this density simultaneously achieves a rebound rate of over 85% (tested by 24-hour rebound recovery at 50% compression) and a hardness of 22-25 Shore OO (100g) durometer,

Ensuring linear feel and stable positioning during mouse movement. A comparative experiment revealed that reducing the density to 0.35 g/cm³ improved softness by 8%, but resulted in a 0.2 cm deviation during rapid swings.

Increasing it to 0.45 g/cm³ increased rebound by 10%, but also increased wrist fatigue by 15% after prolonged use. The density of Poron material for office use has been adjusted to 0.32-0.35g/cm³.

This 5% reduction in density results in a 12% increase in softness (Shore OO hardness drops to 18-22), making it more suitable for wrist support needs during 4-8 hours of daily use.

To verify the rationality of these parameters, we conducted a three-month office environment test with a domestic internet company.

200 employees were divided into three groups and used Poron mouse pads of varying densities (0.30g/cm³, 0.33g/cm³, and 0.36g/cm³).

Data was collected using wrist pressure sensors (sampling frequency 200Hz) and a subjective fatigue questionnaire. Results showed that the 0.33g/cm³ group experienced only a 14% increase in peak wrist pressure (average 32kPa) compared to the 0.30g/cm³ group (28kPa).

Yet significantly improved support—the pad’s deformation during mouse movement was reduced by 0.15mm, improving operational stability by 23%. Furthermore, its fatigue rating (on a 1-10 scale) was 3.2, significantly lower than the 4.8 of the 0.36g/cm³ group.

This differentiated design stems from our in-depth analysis of over 5,000 customer feedback data. Each parameter adjustment was tested in real-world use for at least 200 hours to ensure the final product precisely matches the desired application.

In addition to density, the cell structure of the Poron material is also a key parameter. By controlling the addition of a foaming agent (such as azodicarbonamide (ADC)) (1.5-2.5wt%) and the foaming temperature (120-140°C), we achieve precise control of cell diameter.

The esports model boasts a cell diameter of 30-50μm, creating a denser support structure and ensuring instant rebound during rapid manipulation. The office model boasts a larger cell diameter of 50-80μm, absorbing wrist pressure through greater cell deformation and improving comfort.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations show that the esports model boasts superior cell distribution uniformity (standard deviation ≤10μm) compared to the office model (standard deviation ≤15μm).

This microstructural difference translates directly into macroscopic performance differences—the esports model’s friction coefficient fluctuation range (±2%) is much smaller than the office model’s (±5%).

2. Raw Material Supply Chain Management: Controlling Quality and Stability from the Source

The selection of raw material suppliers directly determines the fundamental quality of Poron materials. For 20 years, we have consistently adhered to a supply chain strategy of “long-term partnership and rigorous screening.”

We have maintained strategic partnerships with international giants such as Dow Chemical, BASF, and Wanhua Chemical for over 15 years and have established a proprietary material traceability system.

For example, for isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), the core raw material for Poron synthesis, our requirements for suppliers far exceed industry standards: each batch of raw material must maintain a consistently high purity of 99.5% or higher (as determined by gas chromatography).

With a free monomer content of ≤0.1% and a moisture content of ≤0.03%. This is two grades higher than the industry average standard (99% purity, free monomer ≤0.3%).

To ensure compliance with these requirements, we have stationed dedicated quality inspectors at our suppliers’ factories. Each batch of raw materials must first pass an initial in-plant inspection before shipment.

Upon arrival, the laboratory conducts a secondary re-inspection using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and a Karl Fischer titrator. Raw materials that fail this re-inspection are immediately returned.

By 2025, our IPDI raw material random inspection pass rate reached 99.8%, providing a solid foundation for stable production.

For polyether polyols (another key raw material in Poron synthesis), we select products with different molecular weights based on application requirements: Esports products use polyoxypropylene glycol (PPG) with a molecular weight of 2000-3000,

Whose longer molecular chain enhances the material’s elastic recovery properties; office products use PPG with a molecular weight of 1000-2000, combined with a small amount of polyoxyethylene glycol (PEG) to enhance the material’s softness and skin-friendliness.

We have also established a batch stability tracking mechanism for polyether polyols. For each batch of raw materials, we record key indicators such as hydroxyl value (56-62 mg KOH/g),

Acid value (≤0.05 mg KOH/g), and moisture content (≤0.05%). We analyze batch-to-batch variations through statistical process control (SPC). If the hydroxyl value of a batch fluctuates by more than ±2 mg KOH/g.

We immediately adjust the isocyanate index (NCO/OH) in the formulation to ensure stable final product performance. During raw material fluctuations in Southeast Asia in 2024, a supplier’s PPG hydroxyl value deviated by 5 mg KOH/g.

By adjusting the isocyanate index from 1.05 to 1.08, we successfully controlled the rebound rate fluctuation of Poron material to within 3%, avoiding production interruptions.

To address raw material price fluctuations and supply risks, we have established a tiered supplier management system: Category A suppliers (strategic partners, representing 30%) provide core raw materials under long-term, 3-5 year agreements.

With annual price fluctuations limited to ±5%. They are also required to maintain at least one month’s worth of inventory in China.

Category B suppliers (major competitors, representing 50%) provide standard raw materials, maintaining a monthly procurement volume of 2-3 batches to maintain market competitiveness.

Category C suppliers (supplementary suppliers, representing 20%) provide special-specification raw materials or serve as an emergency backup. In the first quarter of 2025, IPDI prices increased by 8% month-over-month due to rising international oil prices.

By initiating price protection clauses for Category A suppliers, we were able to limit the increase in procurement costs to less than 3%. At the same time, we increased procurement from Category B suppliers (from 30% to 45%) to further balance costs.

This tiered management system enables us to achieve optimal procurement costs while ensuring quality. In 2025, material procurement costs from Class A suppliers were 3-8% lower than the market average.

3. Formula Innovation: Addressing Regulatory Upgrades and Performance Breakthroughs

Formula innovation is key to maintaining our market competitiveness, especially amidst increasingly stringent environmental regulations and evolving user demands. Every formulation adjustment must balance compliance with performance improvements.

The 2025 OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 introduced a new limit for bisphenol A (BPA), reducing it from 100mg/kg to 10mg/kg. This poses challenges to chain extenders (such as bisphenol A epoxy resin) in traditional Poron formulations.

To address this change, our R&D team spent eight months testing 12 alternative chain extenders.

Ultimately settling on a carboxylic acid-based hydrophilic chain extender (such as dimethylolpropionic acid, DMPA) combined with polyethylene glycol (meth)acrylate oligomers as reactive diluents.

The key to this solution lies in controlling the DMPA dosage (3-5wt%). Too low a dosage can reduce the material’s hydrolysis resistance (tensile strength loss increases from 15% to 28% after 1000 hours of hydrolysis at 77 ℉and 50% RH).

Too high a dosage can increase the material’s hardness (Shore OO hardness increases from 22 to 26), affecting comfort. Through repeated experiments, we stabilized the DMPA content at 4wt%. Simultaneously, we added 2wt% of polyethylene glycol (meth)acrylate oligomer.

Its hydrophilic groups synergize with DMPA, not only reducing the BPA content to below 5mg/kg (in compliance with the new standard) .

But also improving the material’s hydrolysis resistance by 27% (tensile strength loss after hydrolysis is reduced to 11%) through optimized molecular chain cross-linking. We also conducted accelerated aging tests on this formulation (500 hours at 158℉and 95% RH).

The results showed a rebound retention rate of 88%, significantly exceeding the 75% of conventional formulations, validating the solution’s reliability.

For esports products requiring high flame retardancy (such as public equipment in data centers and esports stadiums), we innovatively employed olefin-modified triazine-based small molecule polyamines as chain extenders, replacing traditional flame retardants (such as phosphate esters).

These chain extenders contain 20-25% nitrogen and form a dense carbon layer during combustion, preventing flame spread. Furthermore, their olefin groups cross-link with the polyurethane molecular chains, enhancing the material’s mechanical properties.

By adjusting the chain extender dosage (5-8wt%), we achieved UL94 V-0 flame retardancy for Poron (vertical burning test: self-extinguishing within 10 seconds.

No dripping igniting the cotton underneath), without compromising the material’s elasticity—the rebound rate remained above 85%, and the coefficient of friction fluctuation was ≤±2%.

This technological breakthrough has increased our market share in North America’s esports equipment market by 11 percentage points.

Customer feedback from a North American esports stadium indicates that a mouse pad using this formula showed no noticeable wear or loss of flame retardancy after a year of intensive use (12 hours per day).

4. Regional Formulation Adjustments: Adapting to Different Market Environments and Needs

Different climates and user habits across different regions around the world require targeted adjustments to the Poron formula. This regional customization capability is based on our application testing centers across three continents (Asia, Europe, and the Americas).

Each center has accumulated over 100,000 sets of environmental data (temperature, humidity, desktop material, etc.) and user operation data (mouse grip force, movement speed, etc.).

In the high temperatures above 104℉ found in the Middle East (such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE), traditional Poron materials are prone to softening and dimensional shrinkage (the dimensional change rate at 158℉ is ±2.5% over 24 hours).

Our solution is to add 2-3wt% of montmorillonite nanosheets (<1nm thick, 100-200nm in diameter) to the formula. Their layered structure hinders the thermal motion of polyurethane molecular chains, thereby improving the material's thermal stability.
X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that the montmorillonite nanosheets were well exfoliated and dispersed within the Poron matrix, with the interlayer spacing increasing from 1.2nm to 4.5nm, forming a “nanosheet-polymer” composite network structure.

Field data showed that the Poron material containing 2.5wt% montmorillonite maintained a dimensional change within ±0.8% over 24 hours at 158℉, and maintained a 92% rebound at 122℉, significantly exceeding the 80% of the unadded material.

Field testing also took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where a mouse pad containing this formulation was placed in a non-air-conditioned esports arena (average daily temperature of 107.6℉) for three months.

The friction coefficient increased only from 0.28 to 0.30, fully meeting the requirements of daily use. The low temperatures in Nordic markets (such as Sweden and Norway) (indoor temperatures often drop below 59℉in winter) pose a challenge to maintaining the elasticity of Poron materials.

With the traditional formulation, the rebound rate drops below 70% at 14℉ resulting in a “sluggish” feel when moving the mouse.

Our adjustment plan focused on optimizing the molecular chain structure of the oligomeric diol: polybutylene adipate (PBA) with methyl side chains replaced the traditional polyethylene adipate (PEA).

The methyl side chains hinder crystallization and lower the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the material. Furthermore, the addition of 1-2wt% polypropylene glycol (PPG) as a flexible chain segment further enhances low-temperature elasticity.

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) testing showed that the optimized formulation’s Tg dropped from -22℉ to -49℉, while maintaining a rebound rate above 75% at 5 ℉ and a coefficient of friction fluctuation of ≤±3%.

User testing in Stockholm, Sweden, showed that mouse pads with this formulation achieved a user-friendly operating smoothness rating of 4.2 (on a 1-5 scale) in low winter temperatures, exceeding the 3.5 of conventional formulations.

To address the high humidity found in Southeast Asian markets (with an average annual humidity exceeding 80%), we added 0.5-1wt% of an organosiloxane antifungal agent (such as 3-iodopropyltriethoxysilane) to the formulation.

This agent chemically bonds with the polyurethane molecular chain, preventing the migration and loss issues associated with conventional antifungal agents.

Test data showed that this formulation achieved a Grade 0 antifungal rating (ASTM G21 standard: no visible mold growth) against Aspergillus niger and Penicillium chrysogenum.

Even after six months in a 95% relative humidity environment, the antifungal rate remained above 99%, significantly exceeding the 85% achieved with conventional formulations.

At the same time, we adjusted the isocyanate index (from 1.05 to 1.10), increased the cross-linking density of the molecular chain, and reduced the material’s water absorption rate from 3% to 1.5%, avoiding performance degradation in high humidity environments.

5. Industrial Application of Bio-Based Raw Materials: Balancing Environmental Protection and Cost

By 2025, the focus of material innovation will shift to the industrial application of bio-based raw materials, both in response to environmental protection policies and to consumer demand for sustainable products.

We collaborated with a polymer materials laboratory at a domestic university to develop a bio-based polyol based on castor oil. Through transesterification, the castor oil is hydroxylated to a hydroxyl value of 160-180 mg KOH/g, meeting the requirements for Poron synthesis.

The advantages of this bio-based polyol include its renewability—castor is an annual crop, eliminating land competition with grain production—and a 58% lower carbon footprint than petroleum-based polypropylene glycol (PPG) (Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)).

However, these polyols present challenges such as low reactivity (the hydroxyl reaction rate is 30% lower than that of petroleum-based PPG) and high viscosity (5000 mPa·s at 77℉, twice that of petroleum-based PPG).

To address these issues, we implemented two key measures. First, we adjusted the catalyst system, replacing the traditional organotin catalyst (e.g., dibutyltin dilaurate, DBTDL) with an organobismuth catalyst (e.g., bismuth isooctanoate, BiOct), with a dosage of 0.3-0.5wt%.

Organobismuth catalysts significantly increase the reaction rate between hydroxyl groups and isocyanates, reducing the foaming reaction time from 12 minutes to 8 minutes.

Furthermore, their toxicity is significantly lower than that of organotin catalysts (LD50 of 2000mg/kg compared to 200mg/kg for organotin), thus meeting environmental requirements.
Second, we added 5-8wt% propylene glycol as a diluent to reduce the viscosity of the bio-based polyol (to 2500mPa·s at 77℉), improving the uniformity of raw material mixing.

Through these optimizations, we successfully increased the proportion of bio-based polyols in our office series Poron materials to 30%.

Testing revealed a bio-based carbon content (ASTM D6866 standard) of 42%, fully meeting EU renewable material certification requirements (such as ECOCERT).

In terms of cost control, the price of bio-based polyols (approximately 18 yuan/kg) is higher than that of petroleum-based PPG (approximately 12 yuan/kg), resulting in a 15% increase in material costs.

We offset some of these costs through process optimization: First, we optimized foaming process parameters, lowering the foaming temperature from 266℉ to 257℉ and reducing energy consumption by 8%.

Second, we increased mold utilization by 12% per mold through nested typesetting.

Third, we established long-term procurement agreements with suppliers, stabilizing the purchase price of bio-based polyols below 16 yuan/kg.

Ultimately, the retail price of office mouse pads using bio-based materials increased by only 5%, far below the market expectation of 15%, achieving a balance between environmental performance and market acceptance.

In the second quarter of 2025, sales of this product series accounted for 38% of total office sales, with a repurchase rate of 35%, demonstrating consumers’ appreciation for environmentally friendly products.

6. The Art of Balancing Formulation Optimization: From Lab to Market

The 20 years of experience in formulation optimization have taught us that an excellent formulation isn’t about pursuing the pinnacle of a single performance feature, but rather finding the optimal balance between performance, cost, and environmental performance.

For example, in 2024, we received a request from a European customer for Poron mouse pads to have VOC emissions of ≤30g/L (as required by EU Regulation EC 1907/2006).

Our existing formulation at the time emitted 120g/L of VOCs, primarily from solvent-based plasticizers and residual small-molecule monomers.

The initial solution was to adopt a solvent-free formulation, completely eliminating solvent-based plasticizers and replacing them with reactive plasticizers (such as epoxidized soybean oil (ESO)).

However, testing revealed that while VOC emissions could be reduced to 25g/L, the material’s hardness increased by 15% (Shore OO hardness rose from 22 to 25), and production costs increased by 25%, far exceeding the customer’s cost tolerance (maximum increase of 10%).

We realized that simply being “solvent-free” wasn’t the best option, and we needed to strike a balance between reducing VOCs and maintaining performance and controlling costs.

Ultimately, we innovatively adopted a hybrid approach combining solvent-free in-situ polymerization with a partially reactive plasticizer.

First, we reduced the solvent-based plasticizer from 8wt% to 2wt% and replaced the traditional dibutyl phthalate (DBP) with low-volatility diisononyl phthalate (DINP), reducing VOC emissions by 70%.

Second, we introduced 3wt% of ESO as a reactive plasticizer, whose epoxy groups cross-link with the polyurethane molecular chains, compensating for the increased hardness caused by the reduced solvent content.

Third, we optimized the polymerization process, employing a step-by-step temperature increase (176℉prepolymerization followed by a 248℉ cure) to promote full reaction of the small-molecule monomers and reduce residual content.

These measures reduced VOC emissions to 28g/L, meeting customer requirements. The material hardness was maintained at 23 Shore OO, essentially the same as the traditional formulation.

Production costs increased by only 15%, and through negotiation with the customer, the end-user selling price was increased by 5%, with positive customer acceptance.
During the implementation of this solution, we also addressed a series of production challenges.

The solvent-free formula has a high viscosity (8000 mPa·s at 70℉), making it difficult to achieve uniform mixing with traditional mixing equipment. We upgraded to a high-shear emulsifier (3000 rpm) with a heating jacket (122℉) to reduce viscosity, improving mixing uniformity by 40%.

We also adjusted the mold’s venting structure to prevent bubbles generated during the foaming process, which could lead to pinholes on the product surface.

These detailed adjustments, from the lab to the production line, took three months, but ultimately enabled the industrialization of the technical solution and accumulated valuable experience for subsequent environmentally friendly formulations.

7. Conclusion:Over the past 20 years, the journey of formula optimization for Poron materials has been an evolutionary journey from “following standards” to “setting them.”

From initially referencing Rogers’ basic formula to now being able to independently develop customized formulas tailored to specific market needs,

Every parameter adjustment and every raw material substitution reflects our understanding of user needs and our commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology.

In the future, as bio-based materials and biodegradable technologies continue to develop, we will continue to explore the balance between environmental protection and performance.

Making Poron mouse pads not only a tool for enhancing user experience, but also a practitioner of sustainable development. This balanced approach is the core competitiveness that enables us, as a source factory, to survive and thrive in the fierce market competition.