HOW ARE GLASS BOTTLES MASS PRODUCED?
When you are drinking a bottle of spirit, inadvertently a question came to your mind, how the bottle made? why is the bottle so smooth like a crystal? Is it safe for human health? And ….? Well, well, well, it is a long story to answer these questions.
The origin of glass bottles
Glass was originally obtained from acid volcanic rock coagulation derived, about 3700 BC, the ancient Egyptians have made glass ornaments and simple glassware, but only colored glass. About 1000 BC, China made colorless glass. In the 12th century, commercial glass appeared and began to become an industrial material. In the 18th century, optical glass was made to meet the needs of the development of telescopes. In 1874, Belgium first made flat glass.
In 1906, the United States made flat glass lead machine, then, with the industrialization and scale of glass production, a variety of uses and various properties of the glass come out in succession. In modern times, glass has become a daily life, production and science and technology Important material.
Process Flow
Glass bottle production process include: ① Raw material pre-processing. The massive raw materials (quartz sand, soda ash, limestone, feldspar, etc.) crushed, the wet raw material is dried, iron-containing raw materials Iron removal treatment to ensure the quality of the glass. ② Preparation of batch materials. ③ Melting. The glass batch material is heated at a high temperature (1550-1600 ° C) in a pool kiln or a pool furnace to form a liquid glass that is uniform, bubble-free, and complies with forming requirements. ④ Forming. The liquid glass into the mold to make the desired shape of glass products, such as flat, all kinds of utensils. ⑤ Heat treatment. Through annealing, quenching and other processes, to eliminate or produce the internal glass stress, phase or crystallization, and change the structural state of the glass.
Glass bottle production flow
Field advantages
Glass packaging containers in the field of beverage packaging advantages
Glass packaging materials and containers have many advantages:
1, Glass material has good barrier properties, can well prevent oxygen and other gases on the invasion of the inside contents, while preventing the contents of volatile components to the atmosphere volatile;
2,Gglass bottles can be used repeatedly, can reduce packaging costs;
3, The glass can be easier to change the color and transparency;
4, Glass bottles are health and safety, good corrosion resistance and acid corrosion resistance, suitable for acidic substances (such as vegetables juice, beverages, etc.) packaging;
5, In addition, due to the production of glass bottles suitable for automatic filling production line, the domestic glass bottle automatic filling technology and equipment development is also more mature, the use of glass bottle packaging liquor and beverage in the country have some production advantages.
Production Process
First of all, to design and manufacture of molds, the glass raw materials quartz sand as the main raw material, together with other materials melt into a liquid at high temperatures, and then into the mold, cooling, incision, tempering, the formation of glass bottles. Glass bottles are generally rigid signs, signs made from the mold shape. Glass bottle molding in accordance with the production methods can be divided into artificial blowing, mechanical blowing and extrusion molding three. Glass bottles in accordance with the composition can be divided into the following categories: soda glass, lead glass, borosilicate glass.
The main raw material of glass bottles is natural ore, quartz, caustic soda, limestone and so on. Glass bottles have a high degree of transparency and corrosion resistance, and does not occur any properties change when contact with most chemicals. The manufacturing process is simple, free and changeable shape, hardness, heat resistance, clean, easy to clean, and has the characteristics of reusable. Glass bottles as a packaging material is mainly used for food, oil, alcohol, beverages, condiments, cosmetics and liquid chemical products, a wide range of uses. However, glass bottles also have its disadvantages, such as heavy weight, high transportation and storage costs, low impact resistance
Features and Types
Glass bottles are the main packaging containers for food, medicine and chemical industry. They have good chemical stability; easy to seal, airtight, transparent, can be observed from the outside of the situation of the inside contents; good storage performance; smooth surface, easy to sterilize and disinfect; beautiful in appearance, rich decoration and colorful; have a certain degree of mechanical strength, can withstand the pressure inside the bottle and the external force in the process of transportation; raw materials are widely distributed, low price and so on. The disadvantage is the weight, brittle, easy fragile. However, with the development of new technology of thin-wall lightweight and physicochemical toughening, these shortcomings have been significantly improved. As a result, glass bottles are increasing their production year-by-year with keen competition with plastics, iron and steel cans.
There are a wide range of glass bottles ranging from 1ml vials to dozens of liters of large bottles, ranging from round, square, to shaped and handled bottles, from achromatic, transparent amber, green, blue, black shading bottles to opaque opal glass bottles, too numerous to mention. In terms of manufacturing process, glass bottles are generally divided into two categories: molded bottles (using mold form bottles) and tube bottles (using glass tube form bottles). Molded bottle is divided into large mouth bottles (bottle diameter 30MM or more) and small mouth bottles of two types. The former is used to hold powder, lump and paste, which is used to hold liquid. According to sealing type glass bottle is divided into cork bottle mouth, threaded bottle mouth, crown cap bottle, scrub bottle mouth and so on. According to the use of the situation is divided into one time use glass bottle and multiple use “recovery bottle.” According to the content classification, can be divided into wine bottles, beverage bottles, oil bottles, canned bottles, acid bottles, medicine bottles, reagent bottles, infusion bottles, cosmetic bottles and so on.
In the past ten years, the practice of this technological transformation in glass melting furnaces all over the world has shown that the oxy-fuel combustion technology has the obvious superiority of low investment, low energy consumption and low pollutant emission. In the United States and Europe, light weight bottles have become the leading products in glass bottle cans. Small mouth pressure blowing technology (NNPB) and hot and cold spraying of cans are all advanced technologies for light weight production.
German companies have been able to produce 1 liter of concentrated juice bottles, weighing only 295 grams, the glass wall surface coated with organic resin can increase the bottle pressure strength of 20%. In modern factories, the production of glass bottles is not easy, there are many scientific problems to be solved.
In our daily life, glass bottles can be seen everywhere. Whether it’s drinks, medicines, cosmetics, etc., printed glass bottles are their good companions. Because of their beautiful transparency, good chemical stability, no pollution to the contents, high temperature heating, recyclable use of old bottles, etc., screen printed glass bottles have always been considered the best packaging materials.
