Wholesale cups have the ability to retain or prolong the heat of any drink it is holding because of thermal conductivity. This is a process in which wholesale cups are measured in its ability to sustain temperature. The legal definition of thermal conductivity is the amount of heat transferred onto a surface or particular area. This transfer is made possible by a particular object in conducting heat. Those materials that produce the least and lowest thermal conductivity produces the best insulation capacities.
To get to the bottom of this, wholesale cup suppliers first define and study thermal conductivity. Some things need to be considered here like the British Thermal Unit or BTU involved in the heat and how fast can the heat travel per foot of distance.
So far the materials that have shown positive results are Styrofoam, plastic and paper. The BTU results are as follows: for plastics it is .69 for polypropylene and .35 for polycarbonate: for paper it is .09 and for Styrofoam it is .06. Glass was also tested but it registered with the highest result of 1.82.
All of the three materials, plastic, paper and Styrofoam are commonly used in manufacturing wholesale disposable beverage cups. With all things considered including the size of the beverage cup, the plastics are the least efficient in keeping the hot drinks hot for a long time. Next is paper and the most effective of them all happens to be Styrofoam. This is the main reason why all three are popular choices for materials in wholesale cups.
Now comes the most important question of all. How do the two most efficient materials stack up against each other? First off is that the insulation abilities of both paper and Styrofoam are just about even. The only thing that gives Styrofoam the advantage in terms of result is because of its’ thickness. This slight edge keeps the heat in for a slightly longer period of time. Unfortunately, problems of styrofoam’s ability to be biodegradable is in question. Unlike paper which actually is a totally biodegradable material. This is something that turns off customers from drinking from a Styrofoam cup. And in this aspect, paper gets the edge.
The plastic materials should also be mentioned here. Most of the to-go wholesale cups are made out of polypropylene and polycarbonate resins. The insulation abilities are just about the same also. The main advantages of these cups is that they are thicker than paper and Styrofoam and are more durable.