Recycled beads for expandable polystyrene foam

초록

This paper deals with a new method of recycling the expandable polystyrene(EPS) in the form of raw material such as beads. Expandable Polystyrene foam is used as a cushioning material for protective packaging of equipment and products to attenuate the shock and to prevent to products from being damaged. Recycled content EPS beads had been made by extruding and repelletizing 100 percent recovered product has only been on the market for about six months partly because of its poor mechanical properties due to its irregular shapes in palletized form. Several previous recycling methods on EPS foam are described in terms of characteristics of each processing. Those were possible basically by heating methods, which necessarily lead to degradation of polymeric properties of EPS especially in terms of mechanical properties and are not environmental friendly. This paper presents a mechanical, i.e. physical, recycling method of EPS in the form of beads without heating the material in its process and compares with several other processes in terms of economy, environmental aspects, and its possible applications. The focus of this paper is concentrated on describing the developed recycling process.