Polystyrene (PS) is economical, and is used for producing plastic model assembly kits, plastic cutlery, CD "jewel" cases,smoke detector housings, license plate frames, and many other objects where a fairly rigid, economical plastic is desired. Production methods include thermoforming and injection molding.
Polystyrene Petri dishes and other laboratory containers such as test tubes and microplates play an important role in biomedical research and science. For these uses, articles are almost always made by injection molding, and often sterilized post-molding, either by irradiation or by treatment with ethylene oxide. Post-mold surface modification, usually with oxygen-rich plasmas, is often done to introduce polar groups. Much of modern biomedical research relies on the use of such products; they therefore play a critical role in pharmaceutical research.
Foams
Polystyrene foams are good thermal insulators and are therefore often used as building insulation materials, such as in insulating concrete forms and structural insulated panel building systems. They are also used for non-weight-bearing architectural structures (such as ornamental pillars). PS foams exhibit also good damping properties, therefore it is used widely in packaging.
Expanded polystyrene
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a rigid and tough, closed-cell foam. It is usually white and made of pre-expanded polystyrene beads. Familiar uses include molded sheets for building insulation and packing material ("peanuts") for cushioning fragile items inside boxes. Sheets are commonly packaged as rigid panels (size 4 by 8 or 2 by 8 feet in the United States), which are also known as "bead-board".Thermal resistivity is usually about 36 m·K/W but can range between 34 and 38 m·K/W depending on bearing/density. Thermalconductivity varies between 0.034 and 0.038 W/(m·K) depending on bearing strength/density and the average value is ~0.036 W/(m·K). Adding graphite has recently allowed the thermal conductivity of EPS to reach around 0.030-0.034 and as such has a grey colour which distinguishes it from standard EPS. BASF has produced a variety of this increased thermal resistance EPS called ‘Neopor’ which has become common usage for this product in the UK & EU.
Water vapour diffusion resistance (μ) of EPS is around 30-70.
Some EPS boards have a flame spread of less than 25 and a smoke-developed index of less than 450, which means they can be used without a fire barrier (but require a 15-minute thermal barrier) according to US building codes. A growing use of EPS in construction isinsulating concrete forms. The density range is about 16–640 kg/m3. The most common processing method is thermal cutting with hot wires.
Extruded polystyrene foam
Extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) consists of closed cells, offers improved surface roughness and higher stiffness and reduced thermal conductivity. The density range is about 28–45 kg/m3.
Extruded polystyrene material is also used in crafts and model building, in particular architectural models. Because of the extrusion manufacturing process, XPS does not require facers to maintain its thermal or physical property performance. Thus, it makes a more uniform substitute for corrugated cardboard. Thermal resistivity is usually about 35 m·K/W (or R-5 per inch in American customary units) but can range between 29 and 39 m·K/W depending on bearing/density. Thermal conductivity varies between 0.029 and 0.039 W/(m·K) depending on bearing strength/density and the average value is ~0.035 W/(m·K).
Water vapour diffusion resistance (μ) of XPS is around 80-250 and so makes it more suitable to wetter environments than EPS.
Styrofoam is a trademarked name for XPS; however, it is often also used in the United States as a generic name for all polystyrene foams.
Copolymers
Pure polystyrene is brittle, but hard enough that a fairly high-performance product can be made by giving it some of the properties of a stretchier material, such as polybutadienerubber. The two such materials can never normally be mixed because of the amplified effect of intermolecular forces on polymer insolubility (see plastic recycling), but if polybutadiene is added during polymerization it can become chemically bonded to the polystyrene, forming a graft copolymer, which helps to incorporate normal polybutadiene into the final mix, resulting in high-impact polystyrene or HIPS, often called "high-impact plastic" in advertisements. One commercial name for HIPS is Bextrene. Common applications of HIPS include toys and product casings. HIPS is usually injection molded in production. Autoclaving polystyrene can compress and harden the material.
Several other copolymers are also used with styrene. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or ABS plastic is similar to HIPS: a copolymer of acrylonitrile and styrene, toughened with polybutadiene. Most electronics cases are made of this form of polystyrene, as are many sewer pipes. SAN is a copolymer of styrene with acrylonitrile, and SMA one with maleic anhydride. Styrene can be copolymerized with other monomers; for example, divinylbenzene can be used for cross-linking the polystyrene chains to give the polymer used in Solid phase peptide synthesis.
Oriented polystyrene
Oriented polystyrene (OPS) is produced by stretching extruded PS film, improving visibility through the material by reducing haziness and increasing stiffness. This is often used in packaging where the manufacturer would like the consumer to see the enclosed product. Some benefits to OPS are that it is less expensive to produce than other clear plastics such as PP, PET, and HIPS, and it is less hazy than HIPS or PP. The main disadvantage to OPS is that it’s brittle. It will crack or tear easily.
Disposal and environmental issues
Polystyrene is easily recycled. Due to its light weight (especially if foamed), it is not economical to collect in its original form. However, if the waste material goes through an initial compaction process, the material changes density from typically 30 kg/m3 to 330 kg/m3 and becomes a recyclable commodity of high value for producers of recycled plastic pellets. In general, it is not accepted in curbside collection recycling programs. In Germany, polystyrene is collected, as a consequence of the packaging law (Verpackungsverordnung) that requires manufacturers to take responsibility for recycling or disposing of any packaging material they sell. In the US and many other countries, the interest in recycling polystyrene has led to the establishment of collection points. The producers of large quantities of polystyrene waste (50 tons per year or more) that have invested in the EPS compactors are able to sell the compacted blocks to plastic recyclers.
Environmental impact
Polystyrene salvaged from the sea off the north coast ofHainan Province, China. The pieces are mainly from seafood storage boxes. Hundreds of these balls are placed on the land, presumably awaiting transportation to a recycling facility.
Discarded polystyrene does not biodegrade for hundreds of years and is resistant to photolysis. Because of this stability, very little of the waste discarded in today’s modern, highly engineered landfills biodegrades. Because degradation of materials creates potentially harmful liquid and gaseous by-products that could contaminate groundwater and air, today’s landfills are designed to minimize contact with air and water required for degradation, thereby practically eliminating the degradation of waste.
Polystyrene foam is a major component of plastic debris in the ocean, where it becomes toxic to marine life. Foamed polystyrene blows in the wind and floats on water, and is abundant in the outdoor environment. It can be lethal to any bird or sea creature that swallows significant quantities.
Polystyrene foams are produced using blowing agents that form bubbles and expand the foam. In expanded polystyrene, these are usually hydrocarbons such as pentane, which may pose a flammability hazard in manufacturing or storage of newly manufactured material, but have relatively mild environmental impact. However, extruded polystyrene are usually made with hydrofluorocarbons (HFC-134a), which have global warming potentials of approximately 1000–1300 times that of carbon dioxide
Recycling
The resin identification codesymbol for polystyrene
Most polystyrene products are currently not recycled due to the lack of incentive to invest in the compactors and logistical systems required. Expanded polystyrene scrap can be easily added to products such as EPS insulation sheets and other EPS materials for construction applications. And many manufacturers cannot obtain sufficient scrap because of the aforementioned collection issues. When it is not used to make more EPS, foam scrap can be turned into clothes hangers, park benches, flower pots, toys, rulers, stapler bodies, seedling containers, picture frames, and architectural molding from recycled PS.
Recycled EPS is also used in many metal casting operations. Rastra is made from EPS that is combined with cement to be used as an insulating amendment in the making of concrete foundations and walls. American manufacturers have produced insulating concrete forms made with approximately 80% recycled EPS since 1993. However, polystyrene recycling is not a closed loop, producing more polystyrene; polystyrene cups and other packaging materials are instead usually used as fillers in other plastics, or in other items that cannot themselves be recycled and are thrown away.[citation needed]
Incineration
If polystyrene is properly incinerated at high temperatures, the chemicals generated are water, carbon dioxide, a complex mixture of volatile compounds, and carbon soot. According to the American Chemistry Council, when polystyrene is incinerated in modern facilities, the final volume is 1% of the starting volume; most of the polystyrene is converted into carbon dioxide, water vapor, and heat. Because of the amount of heat released, it is sometimes used as a power source for steam or electricity generation.
When polystyrene was burned at temperatures of 800–900 °C (the typical range of a modern incinerator), the products of combustion consisted of "a complex mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from alkyl benzenes to benzoperylene. Over 90 different compounds were identified in combustion effluents from polystyrene."
When burned without enough oxygen or at lower temperatures (as in a campfire or a household fireplace), polystyrene can produce polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon black, and carbon monoxide, as well as styrene monomers.
