When it comes to commercial construction, rigid foam insulation meets a trifecta of requirements – performance, durability and economics. Rigid foam insulation is a versatile material used in a range of applications, from vehicle manufacturing to building insulation. It is lightweight, relatively cheap, durable, long-lasting and inert (meaning it doesn’t react with other materials).
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In the 1950s, an inventor combined polystyrene and isobutylene, inadvertently creating a foam polystyrene product. This was used immediately in flotation devices during World War II. Since then, advancements in manufacturing and quality control have diversified the application of polystyrene.
As a hard, solid plastic, it can be used in laboratory ware, automotive parts, appliances, food packaging and electronics. When it comes to building insulation, polystyrene can be made into an insulating foam material, the most common being expanded polystyrene (EPS), and extruded polystyrene (XPS).
EPS and XPS foams are both manufactured from the petroleum-based resin, a thermoplastic based on non-cross-linked polymers. EPS is commonly used in eskys, packaging, cups and takeout containers. Made of 2% plastic and 98% trapped air, EPS foam consists of tiny polystyrene beads expanded many times their original size.
XPS foam on the other hand, consists of polystyrene resin crystals combined with additives and a gas-blowing agent, continuously extruded through a machine and then cut to length. XPS foam boards are the ideal option when it comes to specifying high quality insulation for buildings, including roofing and below grade applications.
XPS foam is valued for its high level of thermal efficiency and strength-to-weight ratio. This is because it features a closed-cell construction, making it highly water resistant and capable of performing well as an insulator even in the most challenging situations. The important characteristic that distinguishes it from EPS foam is that there are no tiny voids or spacing between the polystyrene cells. This is a result of the continuous extrusion production process.
Having a completely closed-cell construction is essential for reducing heat transfer and makes XPS foam highly resistant to water absorption. This gives it the unique ability to maintain low thermal conductivity in the presence of large amounts of water. For this reason, it’s specified for applications such as building foundations, underground walls, inverted roofs (including terraces and green roofs), cold storage facilities, parking lots and any other situation that requires high durability and water resistance.
When specified as insulation in commercial construction projects, XPS foam can save approximately 200 times the amount of its embodied energy by increasing the building envelope efficiency. It also has impressive compressive strength characteristics, allowing it to be used in load bearing floors. This is important as floors are a huge source of thermal transfer.
A closed-cell insulation material like XPS foam can resist freeze-thaw cycles, ensuring long term durability at a relatively low cost. Moisture that gets into tiny gaps of EPS foam insulation will shrink and expand as it goes through the freeze/thaw cycle. This significantly impacts its performance as an insulator on top of causing early deterioration. XPS foam insulation is water repelling and is capable of withstanding over 1000 freeze/thaw cycles.
The homogeneous closed-cell composition of XPS foam insulation ensures heat transfer and air leakage is entirely prevented. This is crucial as the energy losses caused by air leaks and a poorly insulated building has a drastic impact on heating and cooling costs. In both summer and winter, properly specified XPS foam insulation boards regulate a consistent temperature inside a building, regardless if whether conditions are wet or dry.
XPS foam insulation has a consistent and predictably tested long-term thermal resistance, even in wet conditions and at low temperatures. It also maintains its thermal and mechanical performance for long periods of time, meaning it’ll continue to perform at a high standard over the life of the building. It is also able to withstand the stresses of temperature changes and freeze/thaw cycles.
Technonicol produces premium quality thermal insulation boards made of extruded polystyrene. Technonicol’s Carbon XPS foam insulation series comes in a range of sizes, thicknesses and compressive strengths to meet the demands of almost every application.
At Plastek, we have extensive experience consulting and supplying these XPS foam insulation products, helping to optimise projects by providing the ideal solutions. We can recommend the right Carbon XPS foam insulation product for your specific project, ensuring a functional and high performance solution for your building.
XPS foam insulation is capable of lasting 100 years or more due to its rigid construction, meaning you never have to worry about replacing it.
Petroleum-based products are inherently combustible. However, insulation products manufactured by established companies must pass independent fire testing, whether it’s EPS or XPS, and be able to meet minimum safety requirements to ensure they don’t pose an unacceptable fire risk.
XPS insulation can be salvaged during renovations and demolitions and is 100% recyclable. Using XPS foam insulation also contributes enormously to reducing energy use in a building. It lasts decades once installed and significantly lowers the carbon footprint of the building over its lifespan.
WHAT IS EPS?
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is a rigid, closed cell, thermoplastic foam material produced from solid beads of polystyrene, which is polymerised from styrene monomer and contains an expansion gas (pentane) dissolved within the polystyrene bead.
Each solid polystyrene bead contains small amounts of gas which expand when heat (in the form of steam) is applied, thus forming closed cells of EPS. These expanded cells occupy approximately 40 times the volume of the original polystyrene bead, and so with a second heat treatment using a mould, large EPS blocks can be moulded into specific customised shapes.
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1. HISTORY
The commercial development of polystyrene was initially started in Germany by IG Farben in 1929, and built on by US firm Dow Chemical Co. around 1935 (1). Though used in both Germany and the US throughout the Second World War, polystyrene foam was more widely introduced by Dow Chemical Co. in 1954 under the brand name 'Styrofoam'. 'Styrofoam' - invented by Dow scientist Ray McIntire - was a result of trying to make a new rubber by combining styrene and isobtylene (2), but by doing so he 'accidently' created a foam 30 times lighter and far more flexible than polystyrene (3).
EPS Properties
Waterproof Insoluble Non-hygroscopic High impact Long-term stable thermal conductivity Non-toxic Chemically inert
2. PROPERTIES
EPS can be moulded in a range of densities from as low as 12kg/m3 up to 50kg/m3 with the resulting properties, such as compressive strength, being determined by the manufactured density.
Products made from EPS are typically water resistant, tough and give very high impact resistance. The air-filled structure has long term stable thermal conductivity, is non-toxic and chemically inert.
Fungi and bacteria cannot grow on EPS due to it's properties.
3. THE MOULDING OF EPS
The production of products made from EPS is done so in 3 stages...
1. Pre-Expansion
2. Maturing
3. Final Forming
The video below shows the process...
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As does this animation...
4. APPLICATIONS
4.1. PACKAGING
As EPS is made of 98% air, it is one of the lightest packaging materials in existance, and therefore adds very little weight to packaging, which means transport costs and fuel emissions are kept to a minimum. It's also hugely useful because it can be clearly marked with specific content like company logos, and labelling can easily be attached directly to the packaging.
A Selection of Products Made from EPS
Polystyrene foam is also tough, and the cellular matrix gives outstanding impact resistance and shock absorbency for the protection of products, making it an ideal packaging in many applications, includes protecting all kinds of electrical components, from mobile phones to fridge-freezers.
Expanded Polystyrene is Used to Package Goods to Protect them in Transit
It is also widely used to protect food and avoid damage during various stages of food production and shipment due to its properties being unable to grow fungi and bacteria. Its low thermal conductivity is utilised largely in the fish industry for the packaging and transport of fish products, and also in the medical field to transport vital transplant organs.
EPS is Often Used for Fishboxes as it Protects the Fish and Keeps it Cold (more info: www.fishboxes.info)
4.2. CONSTRUCTION
Due to its high levels of thermal insulation (from its light weight closed-cell structure, enduring strength, and long term structural integroty) EPS has been used in construction applictions since before the 1970's.
EPS is widely used in walls, roofs, and floors, where its compressive strength can be tailored for specific systems such as beam and block construction, underfloor heating systems, and below concrete floor slabs.
It is also specified for void filling and, at higher densities, as a base for road or rail embankments where traditional fill materials are too heavy. The material has the advantage in city centres of reducing congestion and traffic with the delivery of large volumes of product more efficiently than hardcore.
Other specialist applications such as protection of foundations have also been developed.
EPS Floor Insulation Board: Technical Data
Standard (White) Low Iambda (Grey) Material EPS70 EPS100 EPS150 EPS 200 EPS 70 Compression Strength at 10% Deformation (kPa) 700 100 150 200 70 Thermal Conductivity (W/mK) 0.038 0.036 0.035 0.034 0.030
5. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTS
EPS has a low carbon impact because clean manufacturing technologies equate to minimal energy and water inputs with no production waste. The protective performance of EPS also helps to reduce wastage caused by goods that are broken or damaged in the supply chain, which saves energy, materials, and transportation costs.
The use of EPS also helps to prevent food wastage because due to its cellular nature, as it protects the food and avoids damage in the various stages of production and shipment from farm to fork, ensuring that many different foods reach the retailer or consumer in perfect condition.
EPS is HFC, CFC, and HCFC free, with Pentane used as its blowing agent. Pentane has a low Global Warming Potential (GWP) of less than five - meaning the EU does not register pentane as a substance hazardous to human health or the environment.
As EPS is extremely lightweight it helps to reduce fuel consumption - when goods are transported compared to other heavier packaging materials.
Styrene, used in the manufacture of EPS, occurs naturally in many commonplace products including strawberries, beans, nuts, beer, wine, coffee beans and cinnamon.
The manufacture of EPS is a low pollution process. As steam is the key ingredient, and the water is re-used many times. There is no waste in the process as all cut off or rejects are re-used.
Only 0.1% of total oil consumption is used to manufacture EPS.
The carbon footprint of EPS is lower than many other packaging materials in use today.
6. END OF LIFE
EPS can be successfully recovered and recycled wherever facilities for recycling of EPS exist, which are becoming more widely available from mechanical recovery to solvent treatments, returning the polymer back to raw materials. EPS, sourced from packaging waste, is an ideal material for recovery schemes. Today it only represents 0.1% of municipal solid waste (MSW), although many believe it’s a lot more due to its bulky nature! Where the infrastructure for recycling is not currently in place, it is the ideal candidate to be submitted to energy from waste schemes.
The key benefit of using EPS for EfW is that it has a high calorific value (46,000 kj/kg) not dissimilar to natural gas at 48,000 kj/kg. There are also no toxic emissions in this method of waste management of EPS, as it is incinerated in modern plants at very high temperatures. The biproducts are therefore only steam, carbon dioxide and very low levels of non-toxic ash, which are less contaminating than a typical campfire - and in fact there is no credible evidence that EfW schemes have any impact on public health.
EfW emissions are strictly controlled, and the UK Government’s ‘Waste Strategy for England 2007’ saw ‘no credible evidence of adverse health outcome’ from EfW emissions.
7. MORE INFORMATION
Moulding Expanded Polystyrene (from Plastipedia)
Information on EPS Fishboxes
List of EPS Recyclers
Discover Channel: How It's Made Expanded Polystyrene
List of EPS Suppleirs
8. REFERENCES
1) Plastic Historic Society: The History of IG Farbenindustrie
2) The Inventors: Polystyrene and Styrofoam
3) National Inventors Hall of Fame (Otis Ray McIntire)
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