Glass bottle manufacturing process

Hello, everyone. Today we are going to talk about manufacturing medical glass bottles. First we will talk about its history, then we will try to explain the glass bottle manufacturing process today, and finally show future uses and development expected in the years to come. First let me give you a little background with glass manufacturings history. Glass has been used for various kinds of bottles and utensils, mirrors, windows and more. It is thought to have been first created around 3000 BC, during the Bronze Age. Furthermore glassblowing was invented during the 1st century BC by the glassmakers of Syria. But it is only on August 2, 1904, a patent for a "glass shaping machine" was granted to Michael Owen. The immense production of bottles, jars, and other containers owes its inception to this invention. Now lets take a look at the process. Broadly, modern glass container factories are three-part operations: the batch house, the hot end, and the cold end. The batch house handles the raw materials. The mixture of ingredients to make up the glass (silica, Na2CO3, CaCO3 and recycled glass, together with small quantities of various other minor ingredients) are mixed in a rotary mixer to ensure an even mix of ingredients and fed into the furnace. Then the hot end handles the manufacture proper. The mixture is heated to 1500-1550C, where the ingredients melt, various chemical reactions take place. Afterwards the molten glass is channeled off in fore hearths (heated channels) where it is slowly cooled to temperatures of 1100 1150C to increase its viscosity. Precisely weighed slugs of glass are cut off, molded with compressed air, cooled slowly in annealing lehrs (special ovens) and coated with a special spray to prevent scratching; lastly the cold end handles the product-inspection and -packaging equipment. In the medical field this is a very important part. Each bottle is check through quality control, and is then packaged in a clean room. Once outside it is palletized and covered with a plastic protection to safeguard the products during handling. A label is then assigned to each pallet to insure traceability before being sent towards the zone of storage. To finish let me say a few words about future developments. Today glass is becoming more and more replaced by plastic. And yet glass is, contrary to plastic, 100% recyclable. With its environment friendly characteristics, we can speculate that the future lays in ecology oriented politics. Even now, companies such as SGD are developing glass that is 100% recycled and 100% recyclable. Reducing raw material cost and protecting the environment. Thank you for your attention!