What Is the Current Situation of Plastic Medical Packaging?

In recent years, the rapid growth of pharmaceutical plastic packaging materials and products market has led to the emergence of new materials, new processes, new technologies, and new products, which has greatly improved the obsolete situation of pharmaceutical packaging. The form of drug aluminium foil bag has changed from ordinary glass bottle, wax pill package, and plastic bottle to composite plastic bag and aluminium foil pouch. Among them, the production process of composite materials is divided into multi-layer coextrusion, aluminum-plastic composite, and aluminum plating. Due to the development of polymer materials, plastic packaging materials occupy a more and more important position in medical packaging materials, whose main forms include plastic bottle, standing pouch aluminium foil, strip packaging, and bag packaging. All of these have accounted for more than 95% of the total packaging of tablets. Among them, strip packaging accounted for about 15% and bag packaging accounted for about 10%, while plastic bottle and aluminum plastic blister packaging accounted for more than 30%. Aluminum foil zip lock bag not only accounts for more than 30%, but also competes with bottle packaging. There are many kinds of plastic materials for drug packaging, including PVC, PE, PP, PS, PET, nylon, etc.

1. Plastic Bottle (Bag)

Liquid drugs are mainly divided into injection, infusion, and oral liquid, which are mainly packaged in bottles and aluminum foil pouches. Polyester plastic bottle is one of the most important drug packaging materials. As a drug packaging container, PET has many advantages:

lIt is light and firm

lThe strength and elasticity of the container are significantly higher than those made of other plastic materials

lWithstand considerable impact without damage

In the case of the same drug volume, the weight of PET bottle is only 1 / 10 of that of glass bottle. Pharmaceutical PET bag has good gas barrier, which has the best performance of water vapor and oxygen barrier, so it can fully meet the special storage requirements of drug. PET packaging also have excellent chemical resistance, which can be used for packaging all items except strong alkali and some organic solvents. The recycling rate of PET resin is higher than that of other plastics, so its calorific value is low and no harmful gas is produced.

2. Film Packaging

In the main promotion and application of traditional Chinese medicine granules, powder, and other plastic composite plastic film roll, China mainly develops the following varieties.

lBiaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film has good transparency, heat resistance, and barrier property, so it can be used for the outer layer of composite packaging bag. When BOPP film is compounded with LD-PEEVA, EEA, EAA, or aluminum foil with good heat sealing property, the stiffness and physical and mechanical properties of the composite film can be greatly improved. Besides, the barrier performance of BOPP film can be greatly improved by coating PVDC with excellent moisture-proof and barrier properties.

lTape casting polypropylene film (CPP) has good heat sealing property, so it is often used in the inner layer of composite plastic wrapping film.

lPolyester film (PET), which has excellent mechanical strength, heat resistance, drug resistance, transparency, gloss, and taste retention, which is incomparable to other films.

lPolyvinylidene chloride film (PVDC) is one of the best barrier films. In addition to medical plastic packing film, PVDC film can be widely used in packaging of other products, such as meat products, pastries, tea, and so on.