A review of physical and kinetic models of thermal degradation of expanded polystyrene foam and their application to the lost foam casting process

A review of the literature was conducted in search of an appropriate kinetic model applicable to the polystyrene foam decomposition phenomena encountered in the lost foam casting process. A brief review of the models describing the physical process of foam degradation is also presented. During this investigation, various kinetic models describing polystyrene thermal decomposition in the plastics recycling process have been reviewed. The review indicates that the process conditions in which these models were developed were very different from the casting process conditions, and hence no one model could be suitably employed for the latter. The authors suggest that a more rigorous and intrinsic kinetic experiment depicting the actual foundry conditions is necessary to develop a model that describes the foam degradation kinetics.