Densification of Expanded Polystyrene Waste Using Organic Solvents, a Sustainable Recycling Strategy

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a material with a wide range of applications in different sectors of everyday life and in industry. EPS is a major environmental challenge, as the properties that give it versatility of use make it a difficult waste to manage. Consequently, this type of plastic waste has a low recycling rate, which leads to the need to develop efficient solutions for its management and use postconsumer. Herein presents an assessment of the densification capacity of EPS waste using organic solvents as a sustainable strategy for the recovery of such waste. A mixed factorial experiment design was carried out in which the type of solvent, the revolutions per minute for agitation in the densification process and the concentration of the solvent were analyzed as incidence factors. A coefficient determination of 93.12% was obtained, demonstrating that the model fits normally. The results show that xylene and thinner have the best performance compared to other solvents used in the experiments. This study contributes to the optimization of solvent-based EPS densification processes by statistically identifying which ones are most effective under low-cost and low-energy consumption conditions, providing a scalable and replicable strategy, especially in regions where recycling infrastructure is limited.