The Development of EPS

As a kind of thermoplastic foam, expandable polystyrene has gone through a long course of development. In 1925, Germany began to produce styrene. In that moment, styrene is regarded as a rubber intermediate and this lays the foundation of producing polystyrene. In 1930, the suspension polystyrene comes out, which brings in a lot of responses. Then in 1943, the United States DOW Chemical Company takes the lead in putting the PS foam into industrial production. This is a great step for EPS development. And in 1949 Japan successfully developed extruded polystyrene foam (XPS), and used it for product packaging; in 1952 EPS products first appeared in the German Trade Fair Plastics, and in the future, it is more and more used by many industries.
Because expandable polystyrene has characteristics of lasting and excellent thermal insulation, unique cushioning shock resistance, aging resistance and water resistance, it has been widely used in many areas. Several world-renowned companies have successively developed new products with different technology. After half a century of development, expandable polystyrene has formed their own independent industrial system. Generally speaking, applications of EPS has been developing with the rapid speed, and new products, new processes, new technologies are constantly emerging day by day. Besides, its equipment level is also rising. The sheet metal forming machine has manually turned from the initial small size to large aircraft stage automatic machine; packaging machines are also turned from the original manual, semi-automatic machine to vacuum forming machine. Furthermore, with the growth of expandable polystyrene consumption, expandable polystyrene resin production has changed from the "two-step" process to "one-step", which produces many excellent expandable polystyrene resin with a variety of special properties.
In addition, many countries have established associations about expandable polystyrene research. And universities appears the major of EPS and some research institutions, expanding the new field of expandable polystyrene applications. Especially with the rapid spread of information progression, expandable polystyrene international co-operation and exchange of information technologies are growing. Expandable polystyrene industry’s international development has become a trend.