What material can be found in a grocery store, at work, and in the hospital? The correct answer is styrene. It is almost everywhere. In the foamed state, styrene is used for coolers and insulation, road construction, and packaging of various products: from computers to food. Hard plastic sheets are used to make cutlery, toys, car parts, and many other items used daily. Besides, styrene is quite common in the advertising and printing industry.
What is polystyrene?
Polystyrene is a transparent amorphous non-polar thermoplastic that is easily processed and can be turned into sheets. The raw material for its manufacture is styrenes – a substance obtained by chemical means.
Polystyrene is produced in two main forms:
- as a solid (GPPS and HIPS sheets);
- in the form of foam (expanded polystyrene).
What are the advantages of using styrene in printing?
Low cost, lightweight combined with decent strength characteristics, compliance with environmental safety standards explain the widespread use of polystyrene. This popular industrial plastic is obtained by the polymerization process of styrene. It is characterized by linear structure, rigidity, and a high degree of light transmission.
What are the uses of styrene?
Excellent dielectric properties, low shrinkage during casting, ease of molding and painting, resistance to frost, and low moisture absorption allow manufacturers to use the material to make disposable tableware, toys for children, containers, and packaging for various goods. From raw materials to produce products for the needs of large industry:
1. Construction
In the modern construction market, polystyrene sandwich panels, non-removable formwork modifications, and plates for thermal insulation of roofs, walls, and floors are in steady demand from corporate contractors and private developers. Ceiling baguettes, sound-absorbing tiles, adhesive compositions, decorative and facing materials created based on PS also have excellent operational properties.
2. Medicine
In the field of health care, practical and durable polymer bowls, components of blood transfusion systems, disposable instruments, protective equipment for physicians are needed.
3. Electronics
Coaxial wire supports, dielectric antennas, and housing for household appliances are made of polystyrene.
4. Printing, advertising
It is used for marketing campaigns to make billboards, elements of outdoor advertising.
What are the benefits of using styrene in advertising?
Transparent and light styrene looks like other transparent plastics, such as acrylic or polycarbonate. Several advantages have made it a very popular material for the manufacture of various advertising structures, signs, three-dimensional letters, POS and POP materials, as well as the decoration of premises and exhibition stands:
- It is an inexpensive and easily accessible material. It weighs little (several times less than glass), which reduces the overall weight of the structure and simplifies work with it and its transportation;
- It comes in transparent, white, and colored sheets, which allows you to implement bold creative ideas;
- The material is well-formed and bent (bending on a string), cut, glued.
- Styrene is suitable for printing. It is worth remembering that after production, the sheets may emit some substances, so applying self-adhesive films may require additional degassing to avoid the appearance of bubbles.