You might have seen petri dishes in your biology lab. When you see a petri dish again, remember that it is made of a polymer known as polystyrene. Polystyrene is a plastic that is used to make a variety of consumer goods. It is hard and is usually used to make laboratory equipment and food packaging.
Several additives are added to polystyrene to make it suitable for the production of things like electronic appliances, automobile parts, toys, gardening pots and surf boards.
Polystyrene is made by polymerizing styrene monomers. Some amount of styrene is present in nature as well: in strawberries, cinnamon and coffee. It is easy to sterilize polystyrene. Therefore, it has a wide range of medical applications, including tissue culture trays, test tubes and medical devices.
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