Advantages and disadvantages of PS plastic
PS plastic is short for Polystyrene. This plastic has the following advantages and disadvantages:
The specific gravity of PS material is 1.05 g/cm 3, the shrinkage rate is usually between 0.6% and 0.8%, and the optical transmittance range can reach 88% to 92%
Advantages:
High transparency: Colorless polystyrene has good transparency and can show the color of the product well.
Easy molding: Polystyrene is easy to be molded by injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, foaming and other processes.
Good rigidity: the hardness is relatively high, and it can be made into a variety of products with certain hardness requirements.
Low price: Compared with other plastics, polystyrene has a relatively low cost and is suitable for mass production.
Good thermal insulation: Especially after foaming polystyrene (EPS), has good thermal insulation performance.
Good electrical insulation performance: suitable for the manufacture of various electrical shell and electronic products insulation materials.
Light weight: Low density, suitable for making lightweight products or packaging materials.
Cons:
Large brittleness: non-foamed polystyrene is brittle and easy to break under impact.
Poor heat resistance: the general polystyrene heat resistance temperature is low, about 70-90 ° C, not suitable for high temperature environment.
Environmental impact: It is not easy to degrade, causing pollution to the environment, especially single-use polystyrene products.
Poor chemical resistance: Polystyrene is not resistant to strong acids, alkalis and organic solvents.
Poor linear resistance to UV: long-term exposure to UV will turn yellow and affect the strength.
In response to the shortcomings of polystyrene, there have been many attempts to modify polystyrene to improve its performance, such as adding tougheners to improve toughness, applying high impact polystyrene (HIPS), and studying biodegradable versions of polystyrene.