Solvent Recovery of EPS

 To some degree, EPS is very convenient to our daily life, but it also can pollute the environment if we deal with if in a appropriate way. However, the recovery of EPS FMS not only solves the pollution problem but also makes full use of resources, which is a great idea. This article will mainly introduce the solvent recovery of EPS.
Solvent recovery is a relatively new method of recycling EPS. It is dissolving EPS polymer in limonene. And limonene is a kind of biodegradable solvent extracted from citrus peel. When such a solvent is sprayed to the EPS foam, it will evolute some gas and convert into a high-density foam material whose density is higher many times than the original gel material. Generally speaking, D-limonene can safely dissolve EPS without affect performances of EPS polymers. Besides, it is the colorless liquid with formula C10H16. And it also has a pleasant lemon scent. Furthermore, because it can be transported in a large volumes by truck to the plastic recycling plant, so the application of this solvent can significantly improve economic effects of transport waste EPS foam.
In addition, for comb filter, it can purify waste EPS through filtering gel. When comb filter is used in conjunction with limonene, it not only can remove impurities such as particulate soil, but also other polymers which is not soluble into limonene. After the filtration of gel, adding the second solvent (strictly speaking non-solvent) into the mixture to precipitate the purified EPS. Finally centrifugation separation of these three components, degassing and extruding EPS, the solvent evaporated and can be re-used.
Generally speaking, using limonene to recycle EPS has many advantages. Firstly, as a natural solvent, d-Limonene is absolutely safe, non-toxic and it can be re-used for many times. Secondly, since the dissolution and compaction process is not heated, so the physical properties of polystyrene is hardly declined. Besides, the volume of EPS reduced by 4%, which greatly saves the cost of transportation. The last but not least, since the whole procedure only need to soak EPS into the limonene solvent, so it nearly do not need energy, which also is a great way to reduce the cost of recycle.