“Foam” is generally known everywhere but in fact its’ meaning is so wide. According to translation “Foam” means, “expand” or “blow”. There are two kinds of EPS Foams:
1. Expandable Polystyrene(EPS) usually use as packaging for many kind of products such as television, electrical appliances, helmet, ice box, sheet foam and block foam for road construction.
2. Polystyrene Paper / PSP so called Extruded Polystyrene / XPS which use to produce food tray and food box.
There’s no any CFC’s in PS foam
Both EPS and PSP contain 95 -98 % air another 2-5% is polystyrene which is pure hydrocarbon. CFC’s is Chlorofluorocarbons which is totally different chemical structure from polystyrene. CFC’s has very low blowing point and uneasy to be maintained in EPS beads. Therefore, EPS Foam never use CFC’s at any stage of its production. The blowing agent used since EPS Foam was first introduced in 1952 by BASF of Germany is Pentane gas which, does not contain any chlorine atoms as CFC’s.
PSP Foam in the beginning used CFC’s as blowing agent. In the past two decades CFC’s are gradually phased out from plastics and refrigerator industries. PSP molders in Thailand already use Butane (C4H10) as the blowing agent since the last 15 years. Butane gas is the gas that we use at home for cooking. The blowing agents that use in producing PS Foam are Pentane and Butane, which are pure hydrocarbon as polystyrene. They belong to the same chemical family, the paraffin series as methane, ethane, and propane gas.