In the glass packaging industry, in order to compete with new packaging materials and containers such as paper containers and plastic bottles, glass bottle manufacturers in developed countries have been committed to making their products more reliable, more beautiful in appearance, lower in cost, and cheaper. In order to achieve these goals, the development trend of foreign glass packaging industry is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
1. Adopt advanced energy-saving technology
Save energy, improve melting quality, and extend the service life of the kiln. One way to save energy is to increase the amount of cullet, and the amount of cullet in foreign countries can reach 60%-70%. The most ideal is to use 100% broken glass to achieve the goal of “ecological” glass production.
2. Lightweight bottles
In developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan, lightweight bottles have become the leading product of glass bottles.
80% of the glass bottles and cans produced by Obedand in Germany are lightweight disposable bottles. Precise control of raw material composition, precise control of the entire melting process, small mouth pressure blowing technology (NNPB), spraying of hot and cold ends of bottles and cans, online inspection and other advanced technologies are the fundamental guarantee for the realization of lightweight bottles and cans. Some countries are developing new surface enhancement technologies for bottles and cans in an attempt to further reduce the weight of bottles and cans.
For example, the German Haiye company coated a thin layer of organic resin on the surface of the bottle wall to produce a 1-liter concentrated juice bottle of only 295 grams, which can prevent the glass bottle from being scratched, thereby increasing the pressure strength of the bottle by 20%. The current popular plastic film sleeve label is also conducive to the lightweight of glass bottles.
3. Increase labor productivity
The key to improving the productivity of glass bottle manufacturing is how to increase the molding speed of glass bottles. At present, the method generally adopted by developed countries is to choose a molding machine with multiple groups and multiple drops. For example, the speed of 12 sets of double drop line-type bottle making machines produced abroad can exceed 240 units per minute, which is more than 4 times higher than the current 6 sets of single drop forming machines commonly used in China.
In order to ensure high-speed, high-quality and high molding qualification rate, electronic timers are used to replace traditional cam drums. The main actions are based on molding parameters. The servo drive can be optimized as required to replace mechanical transmission that cannot be adjusted arbitrarily (article source : China Liquor News · China Liquor Industry News Network), and there is a cold end online inspection system to automatically remove waste products.
The entire production process is controlled by the computer in time, which can ensure the best molding conditions, ensure the high quality of the products, the operation is more stable and reliable, and the rejection rate is extremely low. Large-scale kilns matched with high-speed forming machines must have the ability to supply a large amount of high-quality glass liquid stably, and the temperature and viscosity of the gobs must meet the requirements of the best forming conditions. For this reason, the composition of raw materials must be very stable. Most of the refined standardized raw materials used by glass bottle manufacturers in developed countries are provided by specialized raw material manufacturers. The thermal parameters of the kiln to ensure the quality of the melting should adopt a digital control system to achieve the optimal control of the entire process.
4. Increase production concentration
In order to adapt to the severe competition situation caused by the challenges of other new packaging products in the glass packaging industry, a large number of glass packaging manufacturers have begun to merge and reorganize to increase the concentration of the glass container industry in order to optimize resource allocation, increase economies of scale, and reduce disorderly competition. Enhance development capabilities, which has become the current trend of the world’s glass packaging industry. The production of glass containers in France is completely controlled by Saint-Gobain Group and BSN Group. The Saint-Gobain Group covers construction materials, ceramics, plastics, abrasives, glass, insulation and reinforcement materials, high-tech materials, etc. The sales of glass containers accounted for 13% of the total sales, about 4 billion euros; except for two in France In addition to a production base, it also has production bases in Germany and the United States. In the early 1990s, there were 32 glass bottle manufacturers and 118 factories in the United States.
Post time: Sep-06-2021