Memory foam advances give firm support to growing mattress industry

The way we sleep started to change in 1992 with the commercial release of memory foam—a product originally developed at NASA. A decade later, the product became more accessible when the first compressed mattress sold in a box debuted. Today, the polyurethane mattress industry continues to innovate and grow thanks to new chemistry, as reported in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.