I did this experiment long ago but did not recorded. Yes, styrene yield is very high, and I can tell you the side products including black tar are not waste at all but other useful chemicals.
Why not start distilling the acetone-polystyrene mix right way, without prior evaporation of the acetone? Not only do you eliminate the 2nd smashing step, but you recover the acetone rather than put it in the atmosphere.
In retrospect that might work perfectly fine tbh. Only issue I could think of is you might end up with such a huge amount of acetone you might have to do a fractional distillation.. Then again the boiling point is so much lower you might not need to
I would suggest buying an ozone generator and try an ozonolysis reaction to convert styrene into formaldeide and benzaldehyde I would like to try it one day myself But i figured out that the science and the fact that you can get something that smells like almond could be interesting
Awesome video, looking forward to what you decide to do with the styrene! Hope your channel blows up from this video, subbed as I always like new chemistry content showing up in my recommended
I was told that, back in the 80s, one of the big Japanese conglomerates worked out how to dissolve the foam into citrus oil, then do fractional distillation to recover the oil, leaving reusable polystyrene. Allegedly was big in Japan but they didn't feel like exporting and the intellectual property issues kept anyone else from doing it.
that is such a bizarre combination but i can attest, this is gonna be a weird story. i work in a sculpture manufacturing shop where we make items for miniature golf parks. we have a small hill of polystyrene foam at all times, scrap. our shop was invaded by feral cats who loved to poop in piles of styrofoam dust and sawdust. it was horrible. management would not hear my urgent frustration as the smell got worse. one night my coworker counted the cats coming in for their nightly potty break, six at a time. I would not wait for management who was saying landlord was responsible and landlord saying mangers were responsible. i bought urine odor remover and 100% citrus oil, which i had read deters cats. on labor day while everyone was gone i suited up and dealt with the cat feces myself, wearing full protective gear. I plugged the holes in the sheetmetal walls with blocks of scrap foam, so the cats couldnt return. then i doused everything in the essential oil. i noticed where the citrus oil spattered on foam, large cavities appeared within seconds. only acetone does that, I thought. Wow, had no idea this was a viable technique to melt foam. probably safer than acetone, but citrus oil is not cheap.
@@MrJashuaDavies Assuming the distillation works, they are probably reclaiming the oil. (And there are other chemicals that'll do it, but most of them involve various health and fire hazards.)
That's a rewarding view count. Like I commented before, I don't think you'll have to sacrifice anything on your part to find a satisfying base on this platform. Hopefully your consistent effort is starting to be blessed by the algorithm
These videos are awesome. Very informative and I will continue watching. You should make uranotypes with uranyl nitrate, or gold plate something with gold-panned gold!
Ooh I do like the gold idea! I haven't done much plating on here. I don't know where I could obtain uranyl nitrate but if I find a way that could be a cool project too!
You actually use the acetone solution as craft glue or to make use of the plastic directly. Polystyrene is used for a lot of cheap plastic items, even without the foam.
I know I'm pretty late at commenting but the first time I saw this I didn't know much chemistry, now I wanna start experimenting. Can you give me a list of tools you used in this process? Including beakers and stuff too
this is an interesting way of disposing of / recycling styrofoam but what are the environmental effects of evaporating acetone into the atmosphere? Would it not be possible to re-condense the acetone so that can also be recycled?
likely candidate for the yellow/orange impurities are quinones from the oxidation of monomers and dimers, and less likely due to tiny amounts of fused aromatic species. I used to work up crude pyrene for fluoresce use and that easily went brown yellow overnight at rt if left in solution exposed to air
yeah pretty much. The vast majority of the waste comes from styrofoam packaging and single-use plates/cups which there are plenty of alternatives for. However, styrofoam has plenty of industrial uses where it is more difficult to replace. It's also in a ton of appliances (Air conditioners, refridgerators, etc.) and I've got no problem with that.. Its more the single use crap that's a problem.
Styrofoam isn’t foamed with air - it’s foamed with butane or propane. The beads are foamed by applying heat to polystyrene beads saturated in propane under high pressure and temperature.
@@integral_chemistry Believe me - styrofoam burns horribly… You are also looking at gas pressure to foam the styrene at about 120C with a steam heated mould. PS softens at 100C (glass transition) but only fully melts at 210 to 249C. At ambient conditions the actual pressure in the bubbles is a pretty close match to a hard vacuum (which is why polystyrene foam is such a good thermal insulator).
So if you take normal craft polystyrene foam balls and heat them up in a craft oven to 275°F. Which I have done they shrink down to about 15% of the original size. Is styrene being released, I’ve tried to research the dangers of using this method in my crafting, but can’t really get any definitive answers. It’s either total toxic hazardous mess or no not a problem. Update question also in doing more research I see craft videos for kids shrinking Styrofoam. Also shrink plastic is also polystyrene which they put in the oven at 325°F But I can’t specifically find out at what temperature does the Styrofoam start releasing harmful substances. This is not for something I’m going to eat like heating up food in the microwave it’s just for crafting purposes.
275°F is well below even the melting point of polystyrene, so you'd basically just be softening it so it compresses. That will accelerate its natural decomposition (and release any toxic gasses it contains) but it wouldn't force-depolymerize it. Point is yeah as long as you have good ventilation that shouldn't be a problem at all!
@@integral_chemistry thank you for your input, that’s pretty much what I believe if you have any links to any legitimate factual data, please forward it to me. I’m trying to create a craft class, but I want to be prepared for the environmentalist extremist. It’s amazing when you go to websites to look stuff upand it takes you to an activist page and the misinformation they spew for scare tactics. It’s just amazing.
Wow, I am not qualified to take this experiment further but I would love to learn more about this process. I am in an industry that uses polystyrene foam as a building material and we generate a considerable amount of waste and I have appointed myself to find a repurpose or solution to either sell off or donate or chemically modify the chunks of foam. I have heard about blending polystyrene with acetone and we use acetone to clean spray equipment after using automotive clearcoats. simply reducing the EPS to sludge is not beneficial, though it saves space, evap of large quantities is not gonna be prudent in a workplace. i've learned EPS and acetone makes a great adhesive but i would end up with more toxic glue than i could ever use. I want to develop a way to blend EPS scrap with PE polyethylene into a polymer that has some of the rigidity of PS but with flexibility of PE. the PS alone is too brittle to use as a protective coating, and PE is too flimsy and soft. But together.... that could in the right ratio, provide an alternative to polyisocyanate resin coating, also known as polyurea, also known as truck bedliner. that material is applied to the sculptures as an outer hard coating and is what makes fragile polystyrene suitable as a sculpture material that experiences very rough treatment by caffeinated and sugar-addled kids at minigolf parks who will attack it with golf putters at a level just shy of outright vandalism. if anyone has insight into turning polystyrene scrap into a coating suitable for thermally-controlled plural component spray equipment I would be happy to compensate their efforts
Inhibitor = hydroquinone or derivatives 1-2% w/w. Use it or polymerisation will occur, often with disastrous results. Renew the inhibitor at frequent intervals as it does degrade with time - 6 monthly or so.
Eh, even if polistyrine is almost all air, discovering cheaper and biodegradable plastics to substitute it seems a better solution. In reality it's the solution to any plastic, just finding something cheaper than it that's hard. Anyway, cool video about the decomposition of it
Thanks! And yeah agree 100% the best solution is really just fine a biodegradable nontoxic alternative. Tbh though we do have biodegradable nontoxic alternatives, the issue though is that Styrofoam is significantly cheaper and has an essentially infinite shelf life which companies will always choose over sustainability unfortunately..
Percent yield for depolymerization is just product weight over SM weight. For weighing low density styrofoam, remember your buoyancy correction from analytical chem :P
Its great that other people are picking up the baton that Nile Red dropped when he switched from being a chemistry content creator to a meme content creator. -edit I guess I should say something actually chemistry related instead of just slighting NR. I had no idea polystyrene had such a low thermal decomposition temperature. I assumed it would be something closer to the "burn it with fire" temperatures you need with PET pyrolysis.
Hey kids, don't do this at home! Styrene is a known carcinogen, as are some of the other byproducts. Not enough details are shown, but this setup doesn't seem to have adequate ventilation. Trust me, I know this shit. Best advice given is to ban the use of polystyrene foam (I really hate this stuff).
yeah I need to put together a standalone safety vid for this channel (I don't think the disclaimer in my bio is adequate) but yeah my fume hood moves 200 cubic feet of air per minute which is more than enough for stuff like this (it is also passed through HEPA and carbon before being released) but yes this chemical is quite horrid, in all its forms..
Polystyrene is soluble in crude oil and can be directly recycled in a refinery. Oil refiners know this but, are they unwilling to use it as a feedstock voluntarily. There are other ways to reuse and recycle polystyrene foams but, the low density makes transport difficult. Compacting it first is entirely possible and it’s a social decision since it’s not profitable at current prices. A carbon tax might change that; carbon “offsets” are a scam.
Overall - 8/10 for content. Background music is a tad loud, but I have old man hearing. Delivery is a tad dry, but you haven't been afflicted by that dreaded TH-cam tutorial speaking cadence and upspeak which is fantastic. You earned a sub from me. Well done.
Thank you! I will say I will probably begin to phase out music from my videos entirely soon.. I just think that they less and less fit my videos as I progress my "style". And yeah It is weird talking to a camera.. When I try to put enthusiasm in my voice it comes off horribly fake-sounding and weird to me so for now I'm a bit monotone but I'm working on it haha. Thanks for the sub and the feedback!
Styrene itself is also not the healthiest substance. Among other things, it is suspected of being able to permanently damage auditory nerves. Peroxide favors the polymerization of styrene, but styrene itself, as an unsaturated hydrocarbon, can possibly form peroxides, which must be taken into account when heating styrene that has been stored for a long time. Benzene can also be formed during the thermal decomposition of polystyrene. All the more reason to conduct the experiment outside or under a fume hood and to limit the quantities. So far I have only carried out the synthesis in test tube format - also because I have not always succeeded in dissolving the residues from the vessels even with acetone. Please only do this with glasses that you are willing to sacrifice! Thanks for the appreciative words in the credits. I always enjoy watching! Edit: Great performance of this video - congratulations!
@@SciGuy700 I did this as well multiple Times and I recommend using a Steel can or some random steel container with some teflon tape to addapt to the glassware, also if your hotplate can't reach such a temperature using a steel can allows the use of fire or a bunsen burner
@@7hunderstorm242 Yes, and it's all the more annoying to have polymerized styrene inside the condenser. If you do it just small scale using two test tubes, an angle pipe and a old pierced rubber stopper, then a failure wouldn't be a big issue.
In the second distillation you performed, it looked like your thermometer was a bit too low. It should be about 2 cm below the arm on the distillation head in order to get accurate temperature readings. Regardless, cool video, and there’s plenty of chemistry that can be done with styrene.
I love the idea behind this video. I knew ab styrofoam dissolving in acetone but I had never considered using that to create some useful product. I feel like this idea has a lot of potential for recycling styrofoam and I’d love to see more people do research on this.
Very nice video!! If anyone doing this is concerned about the toxic waste gases produced, an acidic KMnO4 solution could probably be used to scrub and oxidize them to benzoic acid. (It cannot oxidize benzene though.) I have heard that by controlling the temperature, you can selectively decompose polystyrene to ethylene and toluene instead of mainly styrene (but it will be quite a slow process since the temperature is lower than what you did here). By the way, can you please do more videos like this where you recover useful products from waste plastic? I would love to see a thermal depolymerization of polyethylene/polypropylene to produce alkanes!
I know perhaps this not practical but can you possibly oxidize the organic tar and byproducts into just CO2 using a piranha solution? Would it also produce some byproducts or is it strong enough to fully decompose the organic compounds?
Given that there is NO chlorine in polystyrene (and thus no dioxin risk), wouldn't incineration be at least as eco-friendly as letting all that acetone waft into the air?
@@Michael2137. In theory yes, but as the piranha gets diluted from the water produced by the oxidation its oxidizing power decreases, which may allow some stuff like benzene to escape off untouched. Even if piranha can oxidize everything, it will take a LOT of piranha that makes it impractical.
@@bcubed72 maybe.. Its all bad but I would think the inceneration byprducts (BTEX mostly) would likely be worse. Ideal would be a way to recapture the acetone, or do this in a chamber large enough to just toss whole chunks of styrofoam
I bought a house and discovered the previous owner had basically never thrown away any of his packaging for any items he bought, and just left them in the crawlspace. It would have taken forever to throw it away, so similar to what you did, I melted it all down with acetone. It was amazing how the mountain of foam -- probably a cube 5'x5'x5' -- reduced down to a block of styrene that was probably 35 lbs, and a cube that was probably 1'x1x'1'.
it is truly insane how much it shrinks. Shrinks even more if you put it under vacuum, I didn't do that for this vid and you probably noticed the hard block of plastic I had was full of holes
The previous owner probably had done that for insulation, but it's not a real good idea for something as flammable as styrofoam to be used as insulation under a house.
Cool process and great explanations! I think your 80 °C fraction product could be mostly benzene (which would be a novel way of getting benzene as a home chemist)
@@integral_chemistry Could you borrow from the transalkylation industry? You have plenty of sacrificial aromatic rings to transalkylate the "polyethylene" backbone onto - and easy access to styrene if you don't think a knotted up cross-linked polystyrene would be a good alkyl acceptor.
Styrene is made from benzene (which is a major hazard for the workers in these plants (because it causes testicular cancer)). (I did some engineering work on one - which also manufactured Glyphosate herbicide - same feedstock). Styrofoam is foamed with butane or propane dissolved in the polystyrene pellets under pressure. An overpressure failure in a polystyrene foam production reactor is “spectacular” (and not something you want to be within a kilometre of).
I have used the primary mix of Acetone and styrofoam as an electrical insulator and glue for electronic components. But I have never tried to distill the dried product.
Hey, just wanted to say that I love your videos! They are super satisfying to binge whenever I'm in a chemistry mood! If I may make a request, could you possibly do a video on how you clean your glassware and such? It's something I don't see a whole lot of, and it would help me a lot.
So rad! I loved all the research you did on styrofoam. I need to catch up on your videos. The chemistry you do is really fun. Especially with all the fact did bits along the way. Thanks!
It appears you've been blessed by the algorithm. Well made video, immediately subscribed. I'm also really curious as to what you have planned for that fresh styrene.
Instead of thermal cracking, there are actually several alternatives that could work at scale too but are definitely more expensive. 1.) Dissolve styrene in nitrobenzene, add it drop-wise to a solution of excess potassium permanganate in nitrobenzene at 70C. This will turn the polystyrene into potassium benzoate and CO2 with some potassium formate also present. This reaction is very clean and doesn’t make a mess of tar. 2.) If benzoic acid isn’t desired, again, there are other options. Dissolve polystyrene in benzene, add a dilute solution of sulfuric acid in water and illuminate it with blue light while bubbling oxygen through it. This will result in a cumene-like reaction in which the phenyl groups on the polystyrene chain get turned into phenols and the chain is left with many many ketone groups. This remaining ketone chain will get split into smaller chains until you end up with a mixture of mainly acetone, acetylacetone, diacetylacetone, acetoacetylacetone and diacetoacetylacetone. 3.) Similarly to the previous process, if plain chlorine is used instead of oxygen (without light, acid or water) it effortlessly converts the benzylic hydrogen to a chloride. The chloride when treated with a strong base (sodium hydroxide) in water turns into a poly-alcohol that when heated in the base bath for a long time breaks down into acetophenone.
Wait... Polystyrene can be turned into benzoic acid without the need of a depolymerization? Is it possible to dissolve it in acetone and add potassium permanganate to the mixture to form potassium benzoate right away?
This would be amazing if the output was something machinable. What a great way to both reduce the amount of waste going to landfills and also get very cheap machining stock, even if it's only for things like making jigs or using for test cuts. Is the material that you end up with after the acetone evaporates out fairly homogeneous, or is it full of bubbles, hard spots, etc?
When he's breaking the bulk polystyrene apart for boiling, it does look very porous. Probably pockets made by the evaporating acetone. If I was designing an industrial process to do that it'd probably be something like: 1. Blend Styrofoam and acetone. 2. Transfer the solution to a vessel where it's heated to the PS melting point and mild vacuum is pulled until no more acetone comes off. Condense and recycle the acetone. 3. Release vacuum and pipe the polystyrene melt directly into a pelletizer, or if that is too complicated, dump it to form sheets that can be crushed before feeding to the pelletizer. 4. Sell recycled PS directly or use for injection/extrusion purposes. Idk if it'd be profitable of course, but that's where I'd start. Maybe you could get away with directly melting the material, but that'd probably require much longer residence time in larger vats. So you'd have to compare the price of working with the acetone.
Yeah he is 100% correct, if you pull the acetone off under vacuum you end up with a crystal-clear product. The porous property actually seems to be (as far as I can tell) tiny air pockets that merged together during the drying. These can just be pulled out by a vacuum.
@@Ioun267 Sadly that sounds a little too complicated for me as a simple home machinist who likes to dabble in other hobbies :D It would have been really cool if it ended up as simple as "mix styrofoam with acetone" and wind up with a usable product straight away.
@Trainwreck1123 I melted a milk jug down to a solid block of plastic which I then used a piece of as a part of a tire tool that would ride on the tire rim while dismounting the tire to keep from scratching the rim. Suitably shaped I think that type of plastic might very well be machinable.
I've been meaning to do a vid on that for ages.. tldr for this type of organic waste I just collect it and turn it over to the state. inorganic waste I handle myself
@Apoptosis If you want you can even go a step further and turn the styrene into benzoic acid by reacting it with a basic solution of potassium permanganate.
My Uncle once gave me a recipe for what he said was the strongest Varnish he'd ever seen. "Add 1,000 cubic inches of Styrofoam to one quart of Toluene."
Would it be a good idea to put the polystyrene/acetone mix into a distillation flask and distill off the acetone, collect it and then do the thermal decomp? Save some money and less acetone in the environment
@@integral_chemistry you could have just said, that you didn't weigh the styrofoam and because of that yield is not accessible. A bit misleading what you said instead, mate :)
@@dfh1299 You're not wrong lol. I make little errors like that all the time bc by voiceovers are always just single-take ad-lib.. I should really write scripts so I'm not just talking out my ass but it just seems like so much effort lmao
If there was a way to extrude it into sheets, that would make a great recycle for us hobbyists who use the plastic in thousands of kits and kitbash projects
I didn't actually smell it (monosubstituted benzene compounds scare me) but thank you! I've actually wanted to do sulfur chloride for months but I hear it smells BAD and I don't want anyone in the area complaining lol
@@integral_chemistry I can only imagine, and frankly can't say I get a good vibe from it (something akin to ice cold chills, the drip of cold dread, etc).
Now the question: for styrofoam it has been shown that some bacteria and insects can digest it - but what about solid styrene? If only styrofoam is broken down at a reasonable rate would that not means that solid styrene is more harmful for the environment in the long term?
@@integral_chemistry i think you wanted to reply to a different comment - one of those that mention that it kinda behaves similar to napalm du to its flammable liquid gooey sticky nature.
@@ABaumstumpf oh yeah you're right, my mistake lol. To respond to your question I would think the bacteria would probably consume the polystyrene at the same rate regardless, but the increased surface area of the expanded stuff would definitely help them break it down faster in general.. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is long-term..
It looks spongey bc of all the micro-bubbles that formed together into bigger bubbles as it dried. Best way to get a crystal-clear plastic you could put in a mould would be by putting it under a vacuum for a few minutes to suck the air out.
You're concerned about the styrofoam's landfill space and microplastics breakdown. and to 'solve' this problem you evaporate gallons of acetone into the atmosphere? ...at least make a distiller to recycle the acetone.
Well to be fair it was about 100mL of acetone to dissolve that huge piece (and it'll actually dissolve a lot more) but your point is still valid. Honestly gentle heating is the best way to condense it but I don't think it would go over well if I used my oven for that.. maybe a heat gun?
I don't have enough experience with 3D printers to really say, but if polystyrene is compatible with the 3D printers then yeah you could definitely extrude this stuff into wires and use it. May want to melt it under reduced pressure though first to get All the bubbles out first
@1:32 - FWIW, it's advisable to keep Sharpie markers stored with the tip down for longest lasting performance. The dissolving Styrofoam was mesmerizing. I wonder if you could actually mill or lathe the polystyrene plastic like you would delrin.
Hi. If you add an email, more people might reach out to you for business. I've contacted other people on TH-cam that also do demonstrations. I can't help you on Patreon (the friction would make my small donation even smaller), but I could send Litecoin directly to you (which has no friction, no middleman). There's this demonstration that I can't find anywhere, and maybe it might give an edge to your channel if you have it while others do not. I've got this hint: calcium L-lactate and calcium D-lactate are both soluble in water when separated, but the racemic salt calcium DL-lactate precipitates out of the solution. Isn't this interesting? This might have uses where optical purity is not needed for the final product.
I do really need to make a "business" email to communicate with people on here better.. I'll likely have one within the week and post it to my profile so keep a look out. In the meantime though thanks for the tip!
Garbage dumps are compacted by trucks, bulldozers, etc, and the weight of more garbage, so I suspect that the "foam" volume ends up being pretty small. The styrene volume will probably last for eons.
Uhmm.... Polystyrene is recycled here (DK). Uncolored polystyrene is collected, compressed for easy storage, , and new polystyrene. I'm not a chemist and don't know what the magic entails - just that it uses energy than creating new polystyrene.
Hi and thank you so much for this video. After you dissolve the polystyrene in the acetone, howyou make sure the mix-mass you get will not stick to the metal..? I saw in another video it got stuck 🤷🏽♂️
I don't know why I've never thought about this as a way to recycle my styrofoam! I have access to all the equipment/reagents/ppe necessary, plus I can try to convince my lab supervisor that it's a way to get some styrene for "free". (We use styrene somewhat regularly, but not much at all, so a few times our bottles have 'gone bad' and autopolymerized or something.)
Huh, a nice calmly narrated no-nonsense chemistry video on youtube. Refreshing.
I did this experiment long ago but did not recorded. Yes, styrene yield is very high, and I can tell you the side products including black tar are not waste at all but other useful chemicals.
Now you got me interested - what would you do with the tar?
@@kpunkt98 tar contains alot of useful aromatics: phenanthrene, naphthalene and others.
@@kpunkt98 interested as well
sell it to Californians
@@tboniusmaximus3047 😂
If you add a bit of copper and calcium oxide the polystyrene will cleave a bit better and make a lot less tar and a bit more ethyl benzene.
huh.. very very good to know. Lemme see if I can promote this comment
The orange color may be from the styrene polymerizing itself due to the lack of an inhibitor like TBC.
Why not start distilling the acetone-polystyrene mix right way, without prior evaporation of the acetone? Not only do you eliminate the 2nd smashing step, but you recover the acetone rather than put it in the atmosphere.
In retrospect that might work perfectly fine tbh. Only issue I could think of is you might end up with such a huge amount of acetone you might have to do a fractional distillation.. Then again the boiling point is so much lower you might not need to
If setting it out to evaporate, no fractional distillation is needed!@@integral_chemistry
I would suggest buying an ozone generator and try an ozonolysis reaction to convert styrene into formaldeide and benzaldehyde
I would like to try it one day myself
But i figured out that the science and the fact that you can get something that smells like almond could be interesting
huh.. Now that actually sounds pretty interesting.. I'll definitely look into that!
Awesome video, looking forward to what you decide to do with the styrene! Hope your channel blows up from this video, subbed as I always like new chemistry content showing up in my recommended
Hopefully some psychedelic substituted phenethylamines.
@@mwilson14Hopefully not, if you don't want TH-cam to close that channel.
Thank you so much! I'm currently looking into nitrating it, but exploring a few options
I was told that, back in the 80s, one of the big Japanese conglomerates worked out how to dissolve the foam into citrus oil, then do fractional distillation to recover the oil, leaving reusable polystyrene. Allegedly was big in Japan but they didn't feel like exporting and the intellectual property issues kept anyone else from doing it.
that is such a bizarre combination but i can attest, this is gonna be a weird story. i work in a sculpture manufacturing shop where we make items for miniature golf parks. we have a small hill of polystyrene foam at all times, scrap. our shop was invaded by feral cats who loved to poop in piles of styrofoam dust and sawdust. it was horrible. management would not hear my urgent frustration as the smell got worse. one night my coworker counted the cats coming in for their nightly potty break, six at a time. I would not wait for management who was saying landlord was responsible and landlord saying mangers were responsible. i bought urine odor remover and 100% citrus oil, which i had read deters cats. on labor day while everyone was gone i suited up and dealt with the cat feces myself, wearing full protective gear. I plugged the holes in the sheetmetal walls with blocks of scrap foam, so the cats couldnt return. then i doused everything in the essential oil. i noticed where the citrus oil spattered on foam, large cavities appeared within seconds. only acetone does that, I thought. Wow, had no idea this was a viable technique to melt foam. probably safer than acetone, but citrus oil is not cheap.
@@MrJashuaDavies Assuming the distillation works, they are probably reclaiming the oil. (And there are other chemicals that'll do it, but most of them involve various health and fire hazards.)
Wow the section "why this is important" is amazing!
Subscribed because I want to find out what you're going to use the styrene for lol
That's a rewarding view count. Like I commented before, I don't think you'll have to sacrifice anything on your part to find a satisfying base on this platform. Hopefully your consistent effort is starting to be blessed by the algorithm
These videos are awesome. Very informative and I will continue watching. You should make uranotypes with uranyl nitrate, or gold plate something with gold-panned gold!
Ooh I do like the gold idea! I haven't done much plating on here. I don't know where I could obtain uranyl nitrate but if I find a way that could be a cool project too!
You actually use the acetone solution as craft glue or to make use of the plastic directly. Polystyrene is used for a lot of cheap plastic items, even without the foam.
3:43 forbidden fire resistance potion
Ive always thought Styrofoam looks kind of tasty
Very nice demonstration ❤
Nice video
Nice vid bud love the content. Keep it up
Is the leftover “black goo” in your flask a heavy crude oil, or could it be refined into a usable oil?
TIL you can break down styrofoam into Acetone. This is going to save alot of trips to the local dump! Thanks and keep up the quality vids!
Insta-sub
Nice science experiment, excellent notation of the work.
Thank you so much!
I know I'm pretty late at commenting but the first time I saw this I didn't know much chemistry, now I wanna start experimenting. Can you give me a list of tools you used in this process? Including beakers and stuff too
this is an interesting way of disposing of / recycling styrofoam but what are the environmental effects of evaporating acetone into the atmosphere? Would it not be possible to re-condense the acetone so that can also be recycled?
likely candidate for the yellow/orange impurities are quinones from the oxidation of monomers and dimers, and less likely due to tiny amounts of fused aromatic species. I used to work up crude pyrene for fluoresce use and that easily went brown yellow overnight at rt if left in solution exposed to air
It gives a verry good special glue, Polystyrene in Acetone
That's true! Very good for that
So.... what exactly does one do with a bottle of that sweet, sweet styrene anyways lol?
What’s a dishtilashon? Ban it for consumer waste as opposed to what? Professional use?
yeah pretty much. The vast majority of the waste comes from styrofoam packaging and single-use plates/cups which there are plenty of alternatives for. However, styrofoam has plenty of industrial uses where it is more difficult to replace. It's also in a ton of appliances (Air conditioners, refridgerators, etc.) and I've got no problem with that.. Its more the single use crap that's a problem.
Styrofoam isn’t foamed with air - it’s foamed with butane or propane. The beads are foamed by applying heat to polystyrene beads saturated in propane under high pressure and temperature.
That is true^^ however those gasses do leech out and get replaced by air, otherwise Styrofoam would be a hellofalot more dangerous 😅😅
@@integral_chemistry Believe me - styrofoam burns horribly…
You are also looking at gas pressure to foam the styrene at about 120C with a steam heated mould. PS softens at 100C (glass transition) but only fully melts at 210 to 249C.
At ambient conditions the actual pressure in the bubbles is a pretty close match to a hard vacuum (which is why polystyrene foam is such a good thermal insulator).
So if you take normal craft polystyrene foam balls and heat them up in a craft oven to 275°F. Which I have done they shrink down to about 15% of the original size. Is styrene being released, I’ve tried to research the dangers of using this method in my crafting, but can’t really get any definitive answers. It’s either total toxic hazardous mess or no not a problem.
Update question also in doing more research I see craft videos for kids shrinking Styrofoam. Also shrink plastic is also polystyrene which they put in the oven at 325°F
But I can’t specifically find out at what temperature does the Styrofoam start releasing harmful substances. This is not for something I’m going to eat like heating up food in the microwave it’s just for crafting purposes.
275°F is well below even the melting point of polystyrene, so you'd basically just be softening it so it compresses.
That will accelerate its natural decomposition (and release any toxic gasses it contains) but it wouldn't force-depolymerize it.
Point is yeah as long as you have good ventilation that shouldn't be a problem at all!
@@integral_chemistry thank you for your input, that’s pretty much what I believe if you have any links to any legitimate factual data, please forward it to me. I’m trying to create a craft class, but I want to be prepared for the environmentalist extremist. It’s amazing when you go to websites to look stuff upand it takes you to an activist page and the misinformation they spew for scare tactics. It’s just amazing.
Wow, I am not qualified to take this experiment further but I would love to learn more about this process. I am in an industry that uses polystyrene foam as a building material and we generate a considerable amount of waste and I have appointed myself to find a repurpose or solution to either sell off or donate or chemically modify the chunks of foam. I have heard about blending polystyrene with acetone and we use acetone to clean spray equipment after using automotive clearcoats. simply reducing the EPS to sludge is not beneficial, though it saves space, evap of large quantities is not gonna be prudent in a workplace. i've learned EPS and acetone makes a great adhesive but i would end up with more toxic glue than i could ever use. I want to develop a way to blend EPS scrap with PE polyethylene into a polymer that has some of the rigidity of PS but with flexibility of PE. the PS alone is too brittle to use as a protective coating, and PE is too flimsy and soft. But together.... that could in the right ratio, provide an alternative to polyisocyanate resin coating, also known as polyurea, also known as truck bedliner. that material is applied to the sculptures as an outer hard coating and is what makes fragile polystyrene suitable as a sculpture material that experiences very rough treatment by caffeinated and sugar-addled kids at minigolf parks who will attack it with golf putters at a level just shy of outright vandalism. if anyone has insight into turning polystyrene scrap into a coating suitable for thermally-controlled plural component spray equipment I would be happy to compensate their efforts
Inhibitor = hydroquinone or derivatives 1-2% w/w. Use it or polymerisation will occur, often with disastrous results. Renew the inhibitor at frequent intervals as it does degrade with time - 6 monthly or so.
Where have you used this styrene?
Eh, even if polistyrine is almost all air, discovering cheaper and biodegradable plastics to substitute it seems a better solution. In reality it's the solution to any plastic, just finding something cheaper than it that's hard.
Anyway, cool video about the decomposition of it
Thanks! And yeah agree 100% the best solution is really just fine a biodegradable nontoxic alternative. Tbh though we do have biodegradable nontoxic alternatives, the issue though is that Styrofoam is significantly cheaper and has an essentially infinite shelf life which companies will always choose over sustainability unfortunately..
Percent yield for depolymerization is just product weight over SM weight. For weighing low density styrofoam, remember your buoyancy correction from analytical chem :P
It would be a better idea to cycle the gasses through a catalytic reactor, since activated carbon has limited potential for absorption of gasses.
The best way to get rid of the tar crap is to burn it on a hot anthracite or dry seasoned hardwood bonfire.
Its great that other people are picking up the baton that Nile Red dropped when he switched from being a chemistry content creator to a meme content creator.
-edit
I guess I should say something actually chemistry related instead of just slighting NR. I had no idea polystyrene had such a low thermal decomposition temperature. I assumed it would be something closer to the "burn it with fire" temperatures you need with PET pyrolysis.
Hey kids, don't do this at home! Styrene is a known carcinogen, as are some of the other byproducts. Not enough details are shown, but this setup doesn't seem to have adequate ventilation. Trust me, I know this shit. Best advice given is to ban the use of polystyrene foam (I really hate this stuff).
yeah I need to put together a standalone safety vid for this channel (I don't think the disclaimer in my bio is adequate) but yeah my fume hood moves 200 cubic feet of air per minute which is more than enough for stuff like this (it is also passed through HEPA and carbon before being released) but yes this chemical is quite horrid, in all its forms..
didnt even know you had a patreon, someone remind me to sign up on wednesday ill forget
4:17 It is yellow😏 The E&F follower gets triggered by this point🤣
4:12 Yellow chemistry uh oh
emmmm, tasty cotton candy
Monotone crying about the environment.
Polystyrene is soluble in crude oil and can be directly recycled in a refinery. Oil refiners know this but, are they unwilling to use it as a feedstock voluntarily. There are other ways to reuse and recycle polystyrene foams but, the low density makes transport difficult. Compacting it first is entirely possible and it’s a social decision since it’s not profitable at current prices. A carbon tax might change that; carbon “offsets” are a scam.
Overall - 8/10 for content. Background music is a tad loud, but I have old man hearing. Delivery is a tad dry, but you haven't been afflicted by that dreaded TH-cam tutorial speaking cadence and upspeak which is fantastic. You earned a sub from me. Well done.
Thank you! I will say I will probably begin to phase out music from my videos entirely soon.. I just think that they less and less fit my videos as I progress my "style". And yeah It is weird talking to a camera.. When I try to put enthusiasm in my voice it comes off horribly fake-sounding and weird to me so for now I'm a bit monotone but I'm working on it haha.
Thanks for the sub and the feedback!
As someone one with a chemistry degree that enjoys watching this kind of chemistry content, I'm eager to see more. You earned a sub from me. Nice.
Thank you! :)
@@integral_chemistry more stuff~!
Styrene itself is also not the healthiest substance. Among other things, it is suspected of being able to permanently damage auditory nerves.
Peroxide favors the polymerization of styrene, but styrene itself, as an unsaturated hydrocarbon, can possibly form peroxides, which must be taken into account when heating styrene that has been stored for a long time.
Benzene can also be formed during the thermal decomposition of polystyrene. All the more reason to conduct the experiment outside or under a fume hood and to limit the quantities.
So far I have only carried out the synthesis in test tube format - also because I have not always succeeded in dissolving the residues from the vessels even with acetone. Please only do this with glasses that you are willing to sacrifice!
Thanks for the appreciative words in the credits.
I always enjoy watching!
Edit: Great performance of this video - congratulations!
Interesting i was to perform this soon do you have any ither suggestions to avoid the risk of loosing my glassware ?
@@SciGuy700 I did this as well multiple Times and I recommend using a Steel can or some random steel container with some teflon tape to addapt to the glassware, also if your hotplate can't reach such a temperature using a steel can allows the use of fire or a bunsen burner
Indeed, benzene was probably the first fraction that came over in the 2nd distillation (were he mentioned acetone).
@@7hunderstorm242
Yes, and it's all the more annoying to have polymerized styrene inside the condenser.
If you do it just small scale using two test tubes, an angle pipe and a old pierced rubber stopper, then a failure wouldn't be a big issue.
Sorry, can you speak up? Didn’t catch that.
In the second distillation you performed, it looked like your thermometer was a bit too low. It should be about 2 cm below the arm on the distillation head in order to get accurate temperature readings. Regardless, cool video, and there’s plenty of chemistry that can be done with styrene.
Thank you! And yeah I do get kind of sloppy with my thermometer placement sometimes lol
I love the idea behind this video. I knew ab styrofoam dissolving in acetone but I had never considered using that to create some useful product. I feel like this idea has a lot of potential for recycling styrofoam and I’d love to see more people do research on this.
Seconding
Very nice video!! If anyone doing this is concerned about the toxic waste gases produced, an acidic KMnO4 solution could probably be used to scrub and oxidize them to benzoic acid. (It cannot oxidize benzene though.)
I have heard that by controlling the temperature, you can selectively decompose polystyrene to ethylene and toluene instead of mainly styrene (but it will be quite a slow process since the temperature is lower than what you did here).
By the way, can you please do more videos like this where you recover useful products from waste plastic? I would love to see a thermal depolymerization of polyethylene/polypropylene to produce alkanes!
I know perhaps this not practical but can you possibly oxidize the organic tar and byproducts into just CO2 using a piranha solution?
Would it also produce some byproducts or is it strong enough to fully decompose the organic compounds?
Given that there is NO chlorine in polystyrene (and thus no dioxin risk), wouldn't incineration be at least as eco-friendly as letting all that acetone waft into the air?
@@Michael2137. In theory yes, but as the piranha gets diluted from the water produced by the oxidation its oxidizing power decreases, which may allow some stuff like benzene to escape off untouched. Even if piranha can oxidize everything, it will take a LOT of piranha that makes it impractical.
@@bcubed72 maybe.. Its all bad but I would think the inceneration byprducts (BTEX mostly) would likely be worse. Ideal would be a way to recapture the acetone, or do this in a chamber large enough to just toss whole chunks of styrofoam
@@integral_chemistryI think you could probably crush the styrofoam to compact it enough to break it down as-is
I bought a house and discovered the previous owner had basically never thrown away any of his packaging for any items he bought, and just left them in the crawlspace. It would have taken forever to throw it away, so similar to what you did, I melted it all down with acetone. It was amazing how the mountain of foam -- probably a cube 5'x5'x5' -- reduced down to a block of styrene that was probably 35 lbs, and a cube that was probably 1'x1x'1'.
it is truly insane how much it shrinks. Shrinks even more if you put it under vacuum, I didn't do that for this vid and you probably noticed the hard block of plastic I had was full of holes
The previous owner probably had done that for insulation, but it's not a real good idea for something as flammable as styrofoam to be used as insulation under a house.
Instead of evaporating the acetone from the polystyrene, is it possible to recover it using a distillation apparatus?
Of course it is, but that would make for a long and boring video.
Cool process and great explanations! I think your 80 °C fraction product could be mostly benzene (which would be a novel way of getting benzene as a home chemist)
As a chemist, please don't get benzene as it is very carcinogenic.
Idk why I didn't consider that but you're probably right.. Wonder if there is a way to favor the formation of benzene
@@integral_chemistry Could you borrow from the transalkylation industry? You have plenty of sacrificial aromatic rings to transalkylate the "polyethylene" backbone onto - and easy access to styrene if you don't think a knotted up cross-linked polystyrene would be a good alkyl acceptor.
Styrene is made from benzene (which is a major hazard for the workers in these plants (because it causes testicular cancer)). (I did some engineering work on one - which also manufactured Glyphosate herbicide - same feedstock).
Styrofoam is foamed with butane or propane dissolved in the polystyrene pellets under pressure. An overpressure failure in a polystyrene foam production reactor is “spectacular” (and not something you want to be within a kilometre of).
I have used the primary mix of Acetone and styrofoam as an electrical insulator and glue for electronic components.
But I have never tried to distill the dried product.
Hey, just wanted to say that I love your videos! They are super satisfying to binge whenever I'm in a chemistry mood! If I may make a request, could you possibly do a video on how you clean your glassware and such? It's something I don't see a whole lot of, and it would help me a lot.
When you get a sulfur in Glassware
Yeah I can do that! I've got a pretty effective routine going actually
0:50 Great idea, good way to get rid of all that pack styrofoam!
hey you can use 1% of BaO by weight as a catalyst to improve yields
Hey, that's pretty good!
So rad! I loved all the research you did on styrofoam. I need to catch up on your videos. The chemistry you do is really fun. Especially with all the fact did bits along the way. Thanks!
It appears you've been blessed by the algorithm. Well made video, immediately subscribed. I'm also really curious as to what you have planned for that fresh styrene.
Praise god, been waiting on youtube to throw me a bone for ages lol
Instead of thermal cracking, there are actually several alternatives that could work at scale too but are definitely more expensive.
1.) Dissolve styrene in nitrobenzene, add it drop-wise to a solution of excess potassium permanganate in nitrobenzene at 70C. This will turn the polystyrene into potassium benzoate and CO2 with some potassium formate also present. This reaction is very clean and doesn’t make a mess of tar.
2.) If benzoic acid isn’t desired, again, there are other options. Dissolve polystyrene in benzene, add a dilute solution of sulfuric acid in water and illuminate it with blue light while bubbling oxygen through it. This will result in a cumene-like reaction in which the phenyl groups on the polystyrene chain get turned into phenols and the chain is left with many many ketone groups. This remaining ketone chain will get split into smaller chains until you end up with a mixture of mainly acetone, acetylacetone, diacetylacetone, acetoacetylacetone and diacetoacetylacetone.
3.) Similarly to the previous process, if plain chlorine is used instead of oxygen (without light, acid or water) it effortlessly converts the benzylic hydrogen to a chloride. The chloride when treated with a strong base (sodium hydroxide) in water turns into a poly-alcohol that when heated in the base bath for a long time breaks down into acetophenone.
Couldn't the styrene double bond be leveraged to form ethyl benzene
Wait... Polystyrene can be turned into benzoic acid without the need of a depolymerization? Is it possible to dissolve it in acetone and add potassium permanganate to the mixture to form potassium benzoate right away?
Beta nitro styrene next?
Damn lol that was literally what I had planned. good call
@@integral_chemistryit'll certainly get people's interest
Did you ever get around to trying it? From what I've seen it's harder than it sounds. @@integral_chemistry
This would be amazing if the output was something machinable. What a great way to both reduce the amount of waste going to landfills and also get very cheap machining stock, even if it's only for things like making jigs or using for test cuts. Is the material that you end up with after the acetone evaporates out fairly homogeneous, or is it full of bubbles, hard spots, etc?
When he's breaking the bulk polystyrene apart for boiling, it does look very porous. Probably pockets made by the evaporating acetone.
If I was designing an industrial process to do that it'd probably be something like:
1. Blend Styrofoam and acetone.
2. Transfer the solution to a vessel where it's heated to the PS melting point and mild vacuum is pulled until no more acetone comes off. Condense and recycle the acetone.
3. Release vacuum and pipe the polystyrene melt directly into a pelletizer, or if that is too complicated, dump it to form sheets that can be crushed before feeding to the pelletizer.
4. Sell recycled PS directly or use for injection/extrusion purposes.
Idk if it'd be profitable of course, but that's where I'd start. Maybe you could get away with directly melting the material, but that'd probably require much longer residence time in larger vats. So you'd have to compare the price of working with the acetone.
Yeah he is 100% correct, if you pull the acetone off under vacuum you end up with a crystal-clear product. The porous property actually seems to be (as far as I can tell) tiny air pockets that merged together during the drying. These can just be pulled out by a vacuum.
@@Ioun267 Sadly that sounds a little too complicated for me as a simple home machinist who likes to dabble in other hobbies :D It would have been really cool if it ended up as simple as "mix styrofoam with acetone" and wind up with a usable product straight away.
Styrofoam is a solution of polystyrene and butane or propane. The bubbles are low pressure hydrocarbon gas (LPG).
@Trainwreck1123 I melted a milk jug down to a solid block of plastic which I then used a piece of as a part of a tire tool that would ride on the tire rim while dismounting the tire to keep from scratching the rim. Suitably shaped I think that type of plastic might very well be machinable.
Very nice video! Please don’t stop! Good luck 🍀 btw, how do you dispose your toxic waste?
I've been meaning to do a vid on that for ages.. tldr for this type of organic waste I just collect it and turn it over to the state. inorganic waste I handle myself
@Apoptosis If you want you can even go a step further and turn the styrene into benzoic acid by reacting it with a basic solution of potassium permanganate.
ooh that would be a cool little project (obviously benzoic acid is likely easier to get) but the science of that would be super cool
@@integral_chemistry Not to mention it could be a good way to convert that nasty polystyrene into something that is almost harmless.
My Uncle once gave me a recipe for what he said was the strongest Varnish he'd ever seen.
"Add 1,000 cubic inches of Styrofoam to one quart of Toluene."
You put the polystyrene first than the Acetone at the beginibg 💀💀
Somebody get this man a bigger heating mantle!!
Would it be a good idea to put the polystyrene/acetone mix into a distillation flask and distill off the acetone, collect it and then do the thermal decomp? Save some money and less acetone in the environment
5:36 you do chemistry videos but you cannot calculate the yield? Damn, that's rough...
lol I obviously can calculate percent yields, I just have no idea what initial mass of Styrofoam I used so I've got no numbers for the calculation.
@@integral_chemistry you could have just said, that you didn't weigh the styrofoam and because of that yield is not accessible. A bit misleading what you said instead, mate :)
@@dfh1299 You're not wrong lol. I make little errors like that all the time bc by voiceovers are always just single-take ad-lib.. I should really write scripts so I'm not just talking out my ass but it just seems like so much effort lmao
If there was a way to extrude it into sheets, that would make a great recycle for us hobbyists who use the plastic in thousands of kits and kitbash projects
I don't see why not! I'm not super familiar with that process but it becomes ductile when heated like any other thermal plastic
I've heard of something similar being done to reduce styrofoam volume for disposal.
Cool video bro, I did not know you could distill styrene of all things...but now I know 😃 subbed too, I love everything chemistry related
Thank you! :)
I can imagine the smell.. hope you are safe (looks safe, just saying wishes). That coloring reminded me of sulfur chlorides.
I didn't actually smell it (monosubstituted benzene compounds scare me) but thank you! I've actually wanted to do sulfur chloride for months but I hear it smells BAD and I don't want anyone in the area complaining lol
@@integral_chemistry I can only imagine, and frankly can't say I get a good vibe from it (something akin to ice cold chills, the drip of cold dread, etc).
Now the question: for styrofoam it has been shown that some bacteria and insects can digest it - but what about solid styrene? If only styrofoam is broken down at a reasonable rate would that not means that solid styrene is more harmful for the environment in the long term?
its not "true" napalm but a decent substitute
@@integral_chemistry i think you wanted to reply to a different comment - one of those that mention that it kinda behaves similar to napalm du to its flammable liquid gooey sticky nature.
@@ABaumstumpf oh yeah you're right, my mistake lol. To respond to your question I would think the bacteria would probably consume the polystyrene at the same rate regardless, but the increased surface area of the expanded stuff would definitely help them break it down faster in general.. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is long-term..
Could you use disolved polystyrene to mold into stuff? It looked pretty spongy still when dried.. but is it just lack of mixing?
It looks spongey bc of all the micro-bubbles that formed together into bigger bubbles as it dried. Best way to get a crystal-clear plastic you could put in a mould would be by putting it under a vacuum for a few minutes to suck the air out.
*spongy 😅
You're concerned about the styrofoam's landfill space and microplastics breakdown. and to 'solve' this problem you evaporate gallons of acetone into the atmosphere? ...at least make a distiller to recycle the acetone.
Well to be fair it was about 100mL of acetone to dissolve that huge piece (and it'll actually dissolve a lot more) but your point is still valid. Honestly gentle heating is the best way to condense it but I don't think it would go over well if I used my oven for that.. maybe a heat gun?
Can we recycle black coloured Styrofoam to styrene same way
Hmm that's a good question. I don't see why not as I don't think the pigment would interfere in any meaningful way
Hey this is probably a dumb question but is it possible to use the dissolved polystyrene post-acetone as a 3D printer filament?
I don't have enough experience with 3D printers to really say, but if polystyrene is compatible with the 3D printers then yeah you could definitely extrude this stuff into wires and use it. May want to melt it under reduced pressure though first to get All the bubbles out first
Yellow color from mesityl oxide, forms from two acetone(via enolate chem)
Hm yeah that actually makes perfect sense. Guess that's good, I assumed it was something much more toxic lol
Mm. Yellow chemistry, the bane of all organic Chem.
Just made picric acid today.. the yellowest of all organic chems
I think I have that same FBF, is it from stonylabs perchance?
it is! Good eye lol
But I thought Styrofoam was a brand name of polystyrene?
It might be a brand name for expanded polystyrene foam.. not sure
@1:32 - FWIW, it's advisable to keep Sharpie markers stored with the tip down for longest lasting performance. The dissolving Styrofoam was mesmerizing. I wonder if you could actually mill or lathe the polystyrene plastic like you would delrin.
If the evaporation of the acetone is done under vacuum, the result is similar to acrylic.
if we end collection before the a-methylstyrene starts to form and we get pure styrene, can we drink it?
ummm... I mean... you wanna drink styrene? Its super toxic lol
Hi. If you add an email, more people might reach out to you for business. I've contacted other people on TH-cam that also do demonstrations. I can't help you on Patreon (the friction would make my small donation even smaller), but I could send Litecoin directly to you (which has no friction, no middleman).
There's this demonstration that I can't find anywhere, and maybe it might give an edge to your channel if you have it while others do not. I've got this hint: calcium L-lactate and calcium D-lactate are both soluble in water when separated, but the racemic salt calcium DL-lactate precipitates out of the solution.
Isn't this interesting? This might have uses where optical purity is not needed for the final product.
I do really need to make a "business" email to communicate with people on here better.. I'll likely have one within the week and post it to my profile so keep a look out. In the meantime though thanks for the tip!
Nilewhite?
You just got a new sub.
:)
Hi
What is the name please of the glass you heated the melted plastic?
That was a 500mL borosilicate flat-bottom boiling flask with 24/40 fittings
@@integral_chemistry thanks
Can you please recommend where you bought it? By the way what is the max temperature it can stand?
So is it a really bad idea to leave a bottle of styrene in a cupboard then forget about it ?
Yeah 😅 even if it doesn't polymerize and explode, it's also EXTREMELY toxic and super flammable so definitely a bad thing to forget about
Although not quite as bad as forgetting about an old bottle of dioxane or some other ether that might form peroxides
Garbage dumps are compacted by trucks, bulldozers, etc, and the weight of more garbage, so I suspect that the "foam" volume ends up being pretty small. The styrene volume will probably last for eons.
Very cool friend! You got a pretty clean looking product at the end. What’s in store for it if you don’t mind me asking?
thank you! The plan for now is to nitrate it unless I can think of something better (or see a good suggestion here in the meantime)
@@integral_chemistry nitro compounds are fun. Let me think on it maybe I can come up with something fun.
Now turn it into thermoplastic filament for 3d printers
what are you going to do with the styrene?
Not sure yet. I was planning to make it into indigo but the process requires phosgene which I don't wanna work with so I'm looking at other options
@@integral_chemistry ok thanks for your reply
Uhmm.... Polystyrene is recycled here (DK). Uncolored polystyrene is collected, compressed for easy storage, , and new polystyrene. I'm not a chemist and don't know what the magic entails - just that it uses energy than creating new polystyrene.
Hi and thank you so much for this video. After you dissolve the polystyrene in the acetone, howyou make sure the mix-mass you get will not stick to the metal..? I saw in another video it got stuck 🤷🏽♂️
I don't know why I've never thought about this as a way to recycle my styrofoam! I have access to all the equipment/reagents/ppe necessary, plus I can try to convince my lab supervisor that it's a way to get some styrene for "free". (We use styrene somewhat regularly, but not much at all, so a few times our bottles have 'gone bad' and autopolymerized or something.)
Invest in a “chemical only” spice grinder or coffee grinder. Really helps to make chemicals into powders
Have you turned a copper penny, silver looking, then to gold looking?
I have! It was ages ago though so you might need to do some digging lol
What's the result when Styrofoam is dissolved in gasoline?
snif sniff...snivel...