The concept and classification of glass bottles and cans? | QLT Glass

Glass bottles and jars are containers made of glass, usually used for storing and transporting various items. Based on their different uses and shapes, glass bottles and jars can be classified into several types:

1. Ordinary glass bottles: the most common type of glass bottle, usually used to store food, beverages, drugs, and other items.
2. Tempered glass bottles: after special treatment, their strength and impact resistance can be enhanced, often used to store fragile items or in situations with a risk of broken glass.
3. Vacuum glass bottles: equipped with seal rings and air-exhausting devices at the bottle mouth, they can maintain a vacuum state inside, usually used to store items that are prone to oxidation or deterioration.
4. Glass bottles with built-in caps: the cap and bottle body are integrated, usually used for packaging items that require sealed packaging, such as drugs.
5. Decorative glass bottles: usually used for decoration, floral arrangements, and other purposes, with various shapes and colors that can be customized as needed.
6. Other special glass bottles: such as chemical reagent bottles, essential oil bottles, perfume bottles, etc., designed and manufactured according to the characteristics and uses of different items.
7. Among them, ordinary glass bottles can be further classified by color, such as brown for red wine, blue for beer, dark green for olive oil, and so on.

China had already used blowing pipes to make hollow glass containers during the Tang and Song dynasties.

Glass bottles are widely used in the packaging field of beverages, alcoholic drinks, chemical products, drugs, educational supplies, and cosmetics. Compared to other packaging materials, glass bottles have advantages such as transparency, easy cleaning, high chemical stability, no contamination to the contents, good air tightness, excellent storage performance, diverse shapes and decorations, and recyclability. However, the disadvantages of glass bottles are their fragility and relatively heavy weight. Nevertheless, with the continuous improvement of manufacturing technology, these disadvantages are gradually being addressed.

The origin of modern glass industry can be traced back to between 1904 and 1908. Shanghai Jinghua Glass Factory, established in 1931, was the first factory in China to continuously manufacture glass bottles and jars using cross-fire and horseshoe-shaped flame regenerative chamber pool kilns and automatic bottle-making machines. In the 1950s, China built a number of large-scale modern bottle-making factories. In the 1980s, the biggest improvement in glass bottle production was the light weighting of glass bottles, which saved raw materials, fuel, increased production speed, and reduced transportation costs. By the 2010s, our factories had accumulated decades of production experience, improved and upgraded raw materials, and our glass bottles no longer contained heavy metals such as lead and mercury. With the upgrading of the entire industry, the health characteristics of glass bottles have also been reflected, and our products have entered the ranks of exempted products. At the same time, we factory continuously improve and upgrade the raw material formula of glass bottles based on experience, making our glass bottles more transparent and with virtually no impurities in color. After passing through a 500-meter long annealing and cooling conveyor, the glass bottles naturally cool down, making them more sturdy, durable, and safe than similar glass bottles. For our products, we pioneered the method of classifying raw materials, which is unique in the industry. We use different raw materials for different glass bottles, different uses, and different shapes, which makes pressure-resistant products such as champagne bottles, beer bottles, and beverage bottles more pressure-resistant, high-end products such as wine bottles and perfume bottles more transparent and upscale in appearance, water cups and other products more adaptable to rapid temperature changes, and cheap pickle jars more affordable, reducing usage costs. Our aim is to manufacture better products at a lower price using better methods.

The chemical composition of glass bottles and jars may vary depending on usage requirements, molding methods, molding speed, process characteristics, and raw material varieties. Most bottles and jars are made of soda-lime-silica glass. The main components of soda-lime-silica glass are SiO2, Na2O, and CaO. Adding an appropriate amount of Al2O3 and MgO can reduce the tendency of glass to crystallize, enhance the chemical stability and mechanical strength of glass, and improve the moldability of glass. The chemical composition of soda-lime glass bottles and jars in most countries worldwide is SiO2 70-74%, CaO and MgO 10-14%, Na2O and K2O 13-16%, and Al2O3 1.5-2.5%. When manufacturing colorless glass bottles and jars, the content of Fe2O3 in quartz sand is very low (generally around 0.03%). Adding Cr2O3 and Fe2O3 will make ordinary soda-lime glass appear greenish, while adding sulfur-carbon or MnO2 and Fe2O3 will make glass appear brown. Borosilicate glass is often used to make bottles and jars for pharmaceuticals due to its high chemical stability. High-end cosmetic bottles are typically made of crystalline glass containing lead, barium, or zinc, while some are made of milk-glass using fluorides as opacifying agents.