How are Styrofoam cups a better insulator than paper, plastic, and glass? - is styrofoam or plastic a better insulator
Recently I saw an experiment in class today, what is the best insulation of hot water. Now show, from experience, my results indicate that loses less hot water temperature in the Styrofoam cup. Were the results of my illness or Styrofoam cups are good insulators?
PS: I initially thought that the cut glass better isolate the water.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Is Styrofoam Or Plastic A Better Insulator How Are Styrofoam Cups A Better Insulator Than Paper, Plastic, And Glass?
2 comments:
Styrofoam insulation is better, because they give a better R-value, such as the level of good insulating material has. Styrofoam insulation is better, because the particles are distributed on the particles of glass, plastic, paper and ... that is, it takes a long time until the particles in a polystyrene cup to leak from the liquid. Think of it as a line of people with buckets trying to put out a fire. The cubes represent the heat energy, and representatives of particles. If the people will continue to spread (such as Styrofoam), it takes more time to spend buckets of energy (heat).
Glass is a poor conductor of heat is, but the air is worse, if a driver is not allowed to move (and thus to heat convection).
Polystyrene is a plastic with many air bubbles in it, so it is a terrible conductor of heat. The heat moves slowly through the air bags and the "wall" prevent bubbles that the movement of air around.
An extreme example is a material called Airgel. It's kind of nano-foam is slightly denser than air (99.8%, the air is). This means that you have a very low thermal conductivity of the air but no heat by convection into the air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
Post a Comment