Polystyrene has been produced on an industrial scale since the 1930s. An amorphous thermoplastic, it is cheap and easily processed. Key properties are transparency and excellent electrical insulation characteristics. Polystyrene is one of the major commodity plastics in use today, finding applications in packaging of food and other products, household goods, construction, energy and communications technology, and thermal insulation e.g. refrigerator liners. Polystyrene can also be modified with rubber to improve impact properties, and it is a key constituent of copolymers and blends. In spite of its long history, polystyrene is still the subject of considerable research interest.

Josef Wnsch has been with BASF AG since 1992, and has been involved in product development and technical service for a wide range of styrenic materials, including packaging grades, syndiotactic polystyrene, styrene-butadiene block copolymers and thermoplastic elastomers.

In this Rapra Review Report Dr. Wnsch first describes the production of styrene polymers in detail, including the synthesis of raw materials, polymerisation routes to polystyrene, production of high impact polystyrene and anionic block copolymers. He then describes the mechanical properties of styrenic polymers, their electrical properties, and their behaviour in fire. The flammability of polystyrene is unacceptable for a number of applications, particularly in electrical products and construction, and thus the selection of flame-retardants is of particular importance.

Discussion of key applications touches upon the importance of certain properties, such as barrier properties for food packaging applications, and methods of fabrication. Packaging applications also provide an outlet for biaxially oriented polystyrene, which has improved toughness, and is crystal clear. Communications technology represents a increasingly important market for polystyrene, particularly high impact grades, where their mechanical strength and rigidity, dimensional accuracy, hard scratch-resistant surfaces and electrical insulating properties all make them ideal casing materials.

He also describes the analysis of polystyrene, and progress to date in recycling. The high thermal stability of polystyrene means that it can be reprocessed with little reduction in performance. Production and consumption data are included. Coverage of the review is restricted to general-purpose polystyrene, rubber-modified high impact grades and block copolymers. ABS and styrene-butadiene rubbers are not considered.

The review is accompanied by an indexed section, containing more than 500 key references and abstracts, selected from the Polymer Library. These provide the reader with much more useful data on the synthesis, properties and applications of styrenic polymers, copolymers and blends.