General-purpose polystyrene (GPPS) has wide application fields but little room for future industry development.

Polystyrene (PS for short) is a thermoplastic resin polymerized with styrene as the main raw material. Polystyrene is mainly divided into general-purpose polystyrene (GPPS), impact-resistant polystyrene (HIPS) and expanded polystyrene (EPS). General-purpose polystyrene is commonly known as transparent benzene and has a colorless, Odorless, tasteless and shiny, transparent bead-like or granular solid. GPPS has the characteristics of high transparency, good gloss, easy processing, and good dimensional stability. It is widely used in daily consumer goods, food packaging, stationery, electronic appliances and other fields.

According to the “2021-2026 China General Grade Polystyrene (GPPS) Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report” shows that in recent years, thanks to the continuous release of market demand, the global GPPS market has gradually expanded. By 2020, the market size has reached 62.5 billion yuan. At present, the development of the global GPPS market has entered a mature stage, and the growth rate of the GPPS market will slow down in the future. It is expected that from 2021 to 2025, the global GPPS market will maintain a low-speed growth trend with an average annual compound growth rate of 0.8%.

Globally, my country is the largest GPPS market, accounting for about a quarter of the global market. In 2020, my country’s GPPS industry production capacity will be around 2.46 million tons. The structure of my country’s polystyrene industry is unbalanced. In recent years, with the deepening of supply-side structural reform, backward GPPS production capacity has gradually withdrawn from the market. At the same time, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, my country’s GPPS industry production capacity will drop to about 2.3 million tons in 2021. At present, GPPS is still the mainstream product in the polystyrene market. With economic development, there is still some room for development in the GPPS market in the future.

my country is a major producer of GPPS, with a large number of domestic GPPS manufacturers, including Dushanzi Petrochemical, Yangzhou BASF, Zhenjiang Chimei, Ningbo Taihua, Renxin New Materials, Guangdong Xinghui, Shanghai Secco and other enterprises. From the perspective of production capacity distribution, my country’s GPPS production capacity is mainly concentrated in East China and South China. East China is the largest GPPS production area in the country, accounting for more than 60% of the production capacity, and South China’s production capacity accounts for nearly 19%.

GPPS is produced by using styrene as a monomer through free radical polymerization or ionic polymerization. GPPS polymerization methods include bulk polymerization, solution polymerization, suspension polymerization, and emulsion polymerization. Among them, suspension polymerization and bulk polymerization are Common industrial polymerization methods. GPPS is cheap and easy to obtain and has a wide range of applications. However, in nature, GPPS is difficult to degrade and can easily cause environmental pollution. As environmental protection supervision becomes increasingly strict, the future development space of the GPPS market will gradually shrink.

Industry analysts said that my country is the world’s largest GPPS producer, but with the upgrading of market demand and the deepening of supply-side structural reform , there is a risk of decline in production capacity of my country’s GPPS industry in the future. At present, GPPS is still the mainstream product in my country’s polystyrene market. Due to its wide range of applications and huge market consumption, there is still some room for development in my country’s GPPS market in the short term.