Polystyrene is a strong plastic created from ethylene and benzene. It can be injected, extruded or blow-molded. This makes it a very useful and versatile manufacturing material.

Most of us recognize polystyrene in the form of styrofoam used for beverage cups and packaging peanuts. However, polystyrene is also used as a building material, with electrical appliances (light switches and plates) and in other household items.

Eduard Simon & Hermann Staudinger Polymer Research

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German apothecary Eduard Simon discovered polystyrene in 1839 when he isolated the substance from natural resin. However, he did not know what he had discovered. It took another organic chemist named Hermann Staudinger to realize that Simon's discovery, comprised of long chains of styrene molecules, was a plastic polymer.

In 1922, Staudinger published his theories on polymers. They stated that natural rubbers were made up of long repetitive chains of monomers that gave rubber its elasticity. He went on to write that the materials manufactured by the thermal processing of styrene were similar to rubber. They were the high polymers, including polystyrene. In 1953, Staudinger won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research.

BASF Commercial Use of Polystyrene

Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik or BASF was founded in 1861. BASF has a long history of being innovative due to having invented synthetic coal tar dyes, ammonia, nitrogenous fertilizers as well as developing polystyrene, PVC, magnetic tape and synthetic rubber.

In 1930, the scientists at BASF developed a way to commercially manufacture polystyrene. A company called I.G. Farben is often listed as the developer of polystyrene because BASF was under trust to I G. Farben in 1930. In 1937, the Dow Chemical Company introduced polystyrene products to the U.S. market.

What we commonly call styrofoam, is actually the most recognizable form of foam polystyrene packaging. Styrofoam is the trademark of the Dow Chemical Company while the technical name of the product is foamed polystyrene.

Ray McIntire: Styrofoam Inventor

Dow Chemical Company scientist Ray McIntire invented foamed polystyrene aka Styrofoam. McIntire said his invention of foamed polystyrene was purely accidental. His invention came about as he was trying to find a flexible electrical insulator around the time of World War II.

Polystyrene, which already had been invented, was a good insulator but too brittle. McIntire tried to make a new rubber-like polymer by combining styrene with a volatile liquid called isobutylene under pressure. The result was a foam polystyrene with bubbles and was 30 times lighter than regular polystyrene. The Dow Chemical Company introduced Styrofoam products to the United States in 1954.

How Foamed Polystyrene/Styrofoam Products Are Made