Polystyrene
The polystyrene (PS in summary) is the Polymère obtained by the polymerization of the monomers of Styrène
Polystyrene is a hard, breakable and very transparent matter. Among the usual industrial plastics, it is a product of very great diffusion, offering a vast field of application. The most known application of the general public is the expanded polystyrene (sometimes called " frigolite"), kind of white foam compacts which is used to pack the apparatuses sensitive to the shocks (electric household appliances, Hi-fi system…), but it is also the transparent and hard plastic used for many types of boxes and cases. These mechanical properties and thermal can be modified by the addition of plasticizers or of butadiene (rubber) to make a polystyrene of it shock says.
The principal uses are:
- Case CD (PS crystal - transparency, breakable)
- Covered out of plastic (PS with additive shock, ISO code: PSB - White, opaque)
- Glasses out of plastic
- Articles of decoration
- food Packing (yoghourt pots)
- Heat insulator in expanded or (EPS) extruded form (XPS)
In a practical way, one recognizes it at his breakable side with a whitening on the zones of constraints. The fastest way to recognize a plastic is to burn it to observe the flame, smoke and to feel the odor; what it is not to better do being given the toxicity of the combustion products. Polystyrene is easily recognizable with its black smoke and its characteristic odor. One can also distinguish it with the very metal noise which it produces by undergoing a shock, for example while falling on a hard surface.
Polystyrene can be transformed by injection or extrusion for example.
Polystyrene, in addition to its breakable side, also suffers from a low chemical resistance and low resistance to cracking under constraint (" ESCR" ).
Polystyrene is most common of the family of the styrenic plastics, with the Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) or SAN.
It is recycled easily with a stoving and can combine with the other styrenic ones (ABS, PSB, SAN, SBC)
Other styrene copolymers, type styrene-butadiene (" SBC"), allow to increase the impact resistance by keeping the transparency. The content butadiene is higher than in a PS shock and the mode of polymerization is different. These copolymers are used either only, or mixes some with polystyrene crystal. These mixtures PS crystal and SBC are common in extrusion. Polystyrene crystal is however extruded alone in units of orientation to form sheets of " OPS" (oriented polystyrene directed polystyrene). This orientation is done with ranks of PS crystal to high molecular weight, in units of orientation in direction machine then transverse direction and confers better held mechanical with the sheet thus obtained.
Trade names in industry
See too
Related articles
External bonds
- Visualization of the process of constitution of polystyrene starting from oil
- Polystyrene Packaging Council homepage
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