Styrene Monomer Recovery Technology for Styrofoam: Exploration of Chemical Recycling Combining Volume Reduction and High Purity Recovery Late 1990s to Early 2000s

Styrene Monomer Recovery Technology for Styrofoam: Exploration of Chemical Recycling Combining Volume Reduction and High Purity Recovery Late 1990s to Early 2000s
The styrene monomer recovery technology for styrene foam is a chemical recycling technology that attracted attention from the late 1990s to the early 2000s as the problem of waste plastics became more serious in terms of both quantity and quality. It was characterized by its ability to recover styrene monomer with a purity of 99% or higher from about 70% of the input volume by heating used styrene foam to high temperatures and distilling it. At the time, styrene foam was lightweight, bulky, and expensive to collect and transport, making it difficult to recycle as a material, and its recycling applications were limited. This technology had the advantage of improving logistics efficiency by reducing volume through heating, while at the same time eliminating the effects of contamination and additives and ensuring quality similar to that of virgin raw materials by decomposing the polymer once and returning it to the raw materials. In the food tray field, in particular, there are
strict requirements for safety and quality, and there were high expectations for this technology to enable the recycling of raw materials. On the other hand, due to the energy consumption and large capital investment required for high-temperature treatment, it was often positioned as a complementary method specialized for styrofoam, rather than a universal technology. Nevertheless, this technology, which attempted to simultaneously solve multiple problems of volume reduction, transportation, quality, and application, was a symbolic achievement of the chemical recycling concept of the early 2000s in that it embodied the idea of recycling waste again as a chemical raw material.