Advantages of expanded polyethylene foam vs cross-linked polyethylene
When considering high performance foams for custom industrial packaging, expanded polyethylene foam (aka EPE or BPE) has several subtle but meaningful advantages over cross-linked polyethylene (aka XLPE) which result in superior packaging protection, cost savings on foam, and a lighter pack and is recyclable. Since both EPE and XLPE come from the same resin (PE) and both are molded buns or planks, one would expect the properties to be identical, but differences in the manufacturing process make EPE superior for a variety of packaging applications such as medical equipment, semiconductor equipment, IT servers, automotive class A surfaces, robotics, and other instrumentation.