Pakiş Ambalaj A.Ş.

We use Polystyrene to produce our foam packaging and insulation products. Polystyrene is a polymer made from styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon, also known as vinyl benzene that is commercially manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry.
At room temperature, polystyrene is normally a solid thermoplastic, so we heat it up to be able to process it. When it cools down again, the polystyrene regains it’s solid nature in whatever form it was last shaped. In our case we also decrease the density of the polystyrene products by adding a blowing agent and nucleant to create polystyrene foam.
Our production is a two step process. First, on our tandem extrusion lines, we melt the polymer by applying heat up to or above it’s melting point to make it flow in the primary extruder. Once the polystyrene is flowing in the primary extruder the blowing agent is injected into the melt. At this point the melt exits the primary extruder, passes the a screen to filter out any unwanted foreign objects, and then enters the secondary extruder. The secondary extruder is essentially a cooling process. Depending on the brand of extruder you have there are usually five to seven zones in which the temperature is controlled by heaters and water cooling. The goal here is to get the melted polystyrene to the die at an ideal temperature for the foaming process to take place. To restate, once the polymer exits the secondary extruder, it enters the die, where you want the melt to be just the right temperature, so when it exits the die and foams, you achieve a sheet of foam polystyrene. The sheet of foam then travels over a cooling mandrel which provides two functions. One, it determines the width of the sheet, and two, it provides the cooling that brings the polystyrene back down to a temperature in which it is solid. The last part of this first step is to wind the polystyrene foam sheet into rolls for storage where they age in general for 3 to 4 days. During this period, the blowing agent is released from the cells of the foam, and replaced with air.