Polyurethane polymer having a hardness of less than or equal to 60 Shore A

A thermoplastically processible polyurethane polymer having a hardness of ≤60 Shore A, obtained by reacting the following components comprising:

• (A) one or more essentially linear polyether polyols and/or one or more polyester polyols which are free of units derived from succinic acid, where a total amount of component (A) has an average molecular weight in a range from 500 g/mol to 5000 g/mol, Mn having been calculated from an OH number determined according to DIN53240,
• (B) one or more diisocyanates comprising 2-methyl-1,5-diisocyanatopentane, 1,4-diisocyanatobutane, 1,5-diisocyanatopentane, 1,6-diisocyanatohexane, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,6-diisocyanatohexane, 2,4,4-trimethyl-1,6-diisocyanatohexane, or diphenylmethane diisocyanate isomer mixtures having a diphenylmethane 4,4′-diisocyanate content of >96% by weight,
• (C) one or more linear diols having a molecular weight of 62 g/mol to 500 g/mol,
• (D) optionally in the presence of one or more catalysts,
• (E) optionally in the presence of one or more additives, auxiliaries, or a combination thereof, and
• (F) optionally in the presence of one or more monofunctional chain terminators, wherein the reaction is performed in a solvent-free fashion and comprises:
• 1) providing and reacting a mixture made up of the total amount of component (A), a portion of component (B) and optionally a portion or a total amount of component (D), component (E), component (F), or a combination thereof, to give an NCO-functional prepolymer, wherein there is a molar ratio of component (B) to component (A) in the range from 1.1:1.0 to 5.0:1.0,
• 2) Reacting the NCO-functional prepolymer with a total amount of component (C) to obtain an OH-functional prepolymer, optionally in the presence of a further portion of component (D), component (E), component (F), or a combination thereof
• 3) Reacting the OH-functional prepolymer with a remaining amount of component (B) and any remaining amount of component (D), component (E), component (F), or a combination thereof to obtain the thermoplastically processible polyurethane, wherein during all process steps there is a molar ratio of component (B) to a sum total of component (A) and component (C) in a range from 0.9:1.0 to 1.2:1.0.