Polystyrene was discovered in 1839 by German pharmacist Eduard Simon. When he isolated it from natural resin, he actually did not realize what he had discovered. Eighty years later, organic chemist Hermann Staudinger discovered that Simon had actually discovered a plastic polymer. Staudinger ultimately won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for all his research related to polystyrene. In the 1930s, scientists at BASF discovered a method for commercial production of polystyrene. At the end of that decade, Dow Chemical Company introduced products made of polystyrene to the United States.
Polystyrene foam was invented and patented in 1944. Determined to create a rubber-like material that could be used for insulation purposes. When he mixed styrene and isobutylene, he accidentally made foamed polystyrene. The result of the combination was a foam 30 times lighter and more flexible than solid polystyrene. It was also cheap to make.
Fast forward to the present. Not long ago, the EPS market was estimated at 6.62 million tons. Given that this material has proven to be very useful in the construction industry, demand for EPS or polystyrene foam is expected to grow.
Nowadays, the construction industry also has a large amount of construction site leftover extruded boards, which can be solved through recycling. However, how to overcome the challenges of EPS and polystyrene foam recycling is also a very difficult task.
For environmental protection, although many places do not accept polystyrene foam or EPS packaging, this does not mean that these materials are unsustainable. These places may not have suitable foam compaction equipment to convert these lightweight, bulky materials into dense forms for economical transportation, which is also a relatively good method.
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