Plastics and Glass in Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Packaging

Since China’s reform and opening up, the standard of living of the people has been increasing, and the demand for medical care and non-essential consumer goods has also been continuously increasing, which has led to the development of the pharmaceutical industry and the cosmetics industry. Among these two industries, plastic and glass are the most common packaging materials. Both play different roles in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.
The current situation of medicine and cosmetics There are more than 6,000 pharmaceutical production enterprises in China. In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has developed rapidly. The output of chemical drugs has reached more than 400,000 tons and more than 1,300 varieties, and more than 4,000 kinds of chemical preparations have been produced. The output of chemical raw material drugs has ranked second in the world.
The bioengineering drugs that represent the latest technological achievements in the development of world pharmaceuticals are also rapidly developing in China. Among the dozens of bioengineering drugs that have been commercialized in the world, China has been able to produce nearly 20 varieties, with an annual production value of nearly 3 billion yuan. Such as hepatitis B antigen genetic engineering vaccine, genetic engineering artificial insulin, interferon, colony stimulating factor, interleukin, erythropoietin and so on.
Since entering the year 2000, the national pharmaceutical production situation has been very good, and the pharmaceutical industry has developed to a new stage of “quality, scale, level, and economic efficiency”. The pharmaceutical industry will continue to maintain double-digit growth, and the industry's profit growth will reach around 11%.
Twenty years ago, the foundation of China's chemical industry was very weak. There were less than 200 cosmetic companies in the country, and the vast majority of companies were involved in workshop-style production. There were only a few varieties such as fragrant powder, vanishing cream, toilet water, and eucalyptus oil. Since 1978, China's cosmetics industry has mushroomed. By the end of 2000, there were more than 4,000 companies that had already obtained cosmetics production licenses nationwide, and the gross value of the cosmetics industry's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 15% to 20%. Its growth rate was far higher than the annual growth of the national economy and light industry. rate.
The cosmetics industry is an industry with low investment, quick results and high taxation. It has made remarkable achievements in creating benefits for the national economy and earning foreign exchange through exports.
For more than 20 years, although China's cosmetics industry has made considerable progress, compared with today's developed countries, China's cosmetics consumption is still at a relatively low level. At present, China's per capita consumption of cosmetics is only 20 yuan (about 2.5 US dollars) per year, while developed countries are about 35-70 US dollars.
Applications and Development Prospects With the rapid development of the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries in China, the use of glass bottles and plastic bottles has increased year by year. However, the relative proportion of glass bottles and plastic bottles used in the two industries will decrease year by year. The main alternative packaging materials are plastic flexible packaging, aluminum foil packaging and aluminum-plastic composite packaging.
1. The materials used in traditional glass bottles are mainly calcium-sodium glass. After artificial or mechanical blowing in a glass furnace, the process is relatively traditional. Due to the increase in the price of glass raw materials, energy consumption is high, and production costs are gradually rising. Glass will also generate environmental pollution such as dust, waste water, and noise during the manufacturing process. As a result, the profits of glass bottle manufacturers are generally low, which restricts the New technology transformation. Therefore, the application of glass in pharmaceutical packaging materials will gradually be replaced by plastic in many aspects.
At present, the use of computer CAD glass bottle mold design, glass furnace kiln computer automatic control and strengthening and lightweight technology, and other aspects of development, improve the quality of glass bottles, reducing the weight. Due to its unique properties, glass is still the main packaging container for injections, infusions, alcohol, and liquor in the pharmaceutical packaging industry, and its consumption accounts for approximately 10% of the pharmaceutical packaging.
In cosmetics packaging, glass still has a very important position. Especially high-end cosmetic packaging, such as high-end perfume packaging, glass bottles still have great advantages. The use of lightweight technology to reduce the thickness of the glass, reduce weight, increase the transparency and surface finish, the glass surface grinding process, painting, color printing (up to 7 ~ 8 color), engraving, etc., can increase the added value of glass bottles, The cosmetics and perfumes that are packaged in this type of glass bottles not only have the function of beauty, but also have the function of decoration, elegant and luxurious, and play a role in beautifying life. This is unmatched by plastic bottles.
The packaging of middle and low-end ordinary cosmetics is mostly replaced by plastic bottles, plastic bags or plastic tubes. The proportion of glass bottles in cosmetic packaging containers does not exceed 8%.
2. Plastic bottles are hollow plastic containers made by various processing methods. It is lightweight, inexpensive, easy to scale, and can be made into a variety of sizes, transparent, opaque and various colored bottles. Plastic bottle printing performance is very good, you can use thermal transfer, inkjet, printing and other methods to direct the instructions, logos, bar codes made on the surface of plastic bottles. Due to the various excellent properties of plastic bottles, it has become the most important packaging container for medicines and cosmetics.
The medicines packaged in plastic bottles are mainly solid tablets, pills, capsules and powders of oral preparations, solutions of liquids, emulsions, and the like. The plastic bottles used for pharmaceutical packaging are mainly made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and other materials.
(l) Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can be made into a colorless, transparent, oxygen-impermeable, oil-resistant, hard bottle that maintains the smell of drugs. In the manufacturing process, stabilizers, plasticizers, antioxidants, colorants, etc. are often added. The residual vinyl chloride monomer is toxic. For this reason, the vinyl chloride monomer in the produced polyvinyl chloride material should be controlled below 2 ppm.
(2) Polystyrene (PS) is a hard, colorless, transparent plastic. The manufactured plastic bottle has good barrier properties, but is easily broken, is electrostatically concentrated, and has a low melting point and cannot be used at high temperatures.
(3) Polyethylene (PE) is milky white and translucent. It has good heat and cold resistance, but oxygen and other gases are easily permeated and the odor is poor.
(4) Polypropylene (PP) is milky white, opaque, moisture-blocking and gas-barrier, it can tolerate the corrosion of acids, alkalis, and various organic substances. The melting point is high, but it is brittle at low temperatures.
The application of plastic bottles in pharmaceutical packaging is an alternate development process. First, a large number of plastic bottles were substituted for glass bottles for pharmaceutical packaging. Later, due to the development of small pharmaceutical packaging, some plastic bottles were replaced by plastic film and composite film packaging. The consumption of plastic bottles in pharmaceutical packaging accounts for about 60% of the total packaging.
For different types of cosmetics, the packaging materials used are very different. Plastic bottles are mainly used in oil products: such as hair oil, hair wax, sunscreen oil, bath oil, massage oil, etc.; emulsion products: such as cleansing cream, cleansing milk, moisturizer, nourishing cream, cream, cold cream, Hair cream, etc.; Surfactant solution products: such as shampoos, bath liquids, etc., and its consumption accounts for 40% of the total consumption of cosmetic packaging. With the development of the rural cosmetics market, the market prospects for plastic flexible packaging skin care and hair care cosmetics are promising, and the small-capacity flexible packaging of cosmetics will have a rapid development.
The rapid development of plastic flexible packaging With the development of plastic film materials and composite film materials, as well as technological advances in automated weighing and packaging equipment, plastic flexible packaging will become the main form of packaging for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics in the packaging of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Flexible packaging is a form of packaging that has been rapidly developed in recent years and has very obvious advantages in the packaging industry.
1. Rich material selection. The traditional single-layer membranes mainly include: regenerated fiber membranes, cellophane, and acetate membranes. In recent years, there have been polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, nylon, vinylon, polystyrene, polycarbonate, shrink film, elastic film, aluminum foil and so on. Composite membranes overcome the disadvantages of single-layer films and are ideal new packaging materials. The basic structure is based on non-thermoplastic high-melting materials such as paper, aluminum foil, cellophane, nylon, polyester, stretched polypropylene, etc., as the outer layer, and unstretched polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinylidene chloride, ionomer polymerization. Thermoplastic materials such as the inner layer. At present, a six-layer high-moisture multi-layer composite film has emerged abroad.
2. With advanced manufacturing technology and high degree of packaging automation, it can be completed from feeding, filming, printing and packaging at one time, ensuring the quality of packaging. The use of single-layer films and composite films for pharmaceutical packaging has increased rapidly. It has been used in blister packs and strip packs for tablets and capsules, single-layer packs and composite packs, and outer packs and packs for paper packs. Liners, etc., are also suitable for single-dose packaging of tablets, powders, and preparations.
3. Long storage period, good sealing, shelf life of up to 3-5 years.
4. Easy to store, sell and use. Take the hospital soft packaging infusion bag as an example, the infusion soft packaging bag made of special non-toxic plastic has good physical and chemical properties. The plastic soft packaging infusion production process is simple, the operation is easy, the production is safe, and the cost is low. It is a good infusion packaging container. In Europe, plastic flexible packaging bags account for 43% of the total infusion volume. In the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries, the use of plastic soft packaging infusion is also very common. China's plastic flexible packaging infusion started late and lacked uniform standards in production. However, the hospital PVC plastic flexible packaging infusion developed rapidly, became a substitute for glass bottle infusion, and became the development direction of hospital infusion production.
Hospitals in the PVC plastic flexible packaging infusion production process, the main need to solve the PVC bag quality, infusion preparation, filling heat, disinfection, sterilization, storage and other issues, to ensure the quality of PVC plastic flexible packaging infusion.
There is no end to the development of packaging materials and packaging processes. Some traditional packaging materials and packaging containers are replaced by new materials and containers. This is the inevitable result of technological development and market competition. Glass bottles and plastic bottles The most common packaging containers for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics are important not to maintain its use, but to improve the processing technology, reduce product costs, improve product quality, increase market competitiveness and the economic efficiency of enterprises. (He Qinsheng)