exposure to ‘packaging and application’ relevant information at the graduate and postgraduate level. Special physical features include problems and solutions, numerical values, assertions and projections, illustrations, and an attempt at simplification along with a suitable degree of technical content.
The idea for this book came to me some time ago during discussions with my dear long‐standing friends and former colleagues – Dr James O'Reilly, Dr Ewen Brierley, Dr Martin Wickham, Dr Michel Cornec, Dr Romain Briandet, Professor Reinhard Miller, Dr David Clark, Professor Brian Robinson, Professor Peter Wilde, Yves Popineau, and Professor Daniel Bonn – during a brief period when we worked together in the UK, Germany, and France. Our discussions – both serious and jocular – prompted me to start thinking about a technical book worthy of writing that might combine chemistry, physics, and engineering with my more newly discovered and passionate area of interest of sustainability and recycling in the context of industrial processes. More than 20 years on and after writing two ‘pharmaceutical technology’ books en route, I finally got around to writing a book covering materials, processes, and design applications despite some very serious health hiccoughs along the way. The person who got me through this most difficult spell and barrage of illnesses, ultimately achieving complete recovery, was my wonderful wife, Dr Ralitza Valtcheva‐Sarker. I guess part of the credit for pushing me to write this book also has to go to colleagues past and those present at my current place of employment in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Brighton, UK. My colleagues shared out new lectures in medical and pharmaceutical packaging and pharmaceutical and medical device technology to me and, therefore, pushed me into an area not studied at length before.
Dipak K. Sarker
Brighton
2020
1 Historical Perspective and Evolution
CHAPTER MENU
Abstract
This chapter covers a brief chronology of the development of packaging materials and types of packaging containers through time. The chapter goes on to survey packaging use in terms of containment or collation of units. Following on from this is the fundamental classification of packaging and its role in terms of providing information. The chapter then moves on to a brief description of the various types and subtypes of packaging materials.
Keywords use; application; marketing; benefits; classification; identity; novel materials;
1.1 Introduction
1.1.1 The Chronology of Packaging Development
The use of packaging is often thought of as an industrial‐age concept but this is entirely untrue. In more ancient times products of economic or nutritional value were always wrapped in a suitable material to convey the need to protect the contents. The Roman emperors and Byzantine kings frequently wrapped precious goods in all manner of materials from woven rattan baskets to carved and gilded in‐laid ebony boxes. Expensive luxury goods such as chalices and ceremonial goods are almost always stored in a suitable presentation case that demonstrates the value of the product contained within. Perfumes, chrism oils, and ceremonial jewellery have always been contained in sculpted and carved lidded boxes and glazed pottery. However, the use of bespoke packaging is really a modern‐age phenomenon. Packaging use began with leaves and birch bark and other natural materials. In antiquity and prehistoric times humans wrapped their foods in crudely fashioned carriers and containers and also pelts and hides. The mass production of containers later involved woven materials (e.g. rushes and reeds) to create baskets and carriers and also textiles, pottery, and bronze amphora and carved objects (e.g. ivory, antler horn, and wood). Recent estimates place ‘crude glass’ or vitrified materials and wood packaging use to at least 3000 BCE and these artefacts come from the Indus Valley civilisations and Mesopotamia.
In the modern era, that is, since the early 1900s, paper and cardboard have become extremely important packaging materials. Following the invention of plastics, the emerging industries making commercial packaging substituted plastic for paper as a primary packaging material. Many modern environmentalists hanker back to the times of the English Georgian and Victorian periods when forms of waxed paper were commonly used to wrap foods, such as cheese, butter, or meat, and pharmaceutical products, such as dried forms of poultices, pills (comprimés), and lozenges or oral dosage forms. A revolutionary step in packaging occurred in 1810 when Peter Durand, a British merchant, obtained a patent (UK no. 3372) for the first metal can. This can was for preservation packaging made from sheet metal to create a ‘cylindrical canister’. The actual invention of the ‘tin can’ is put down to Philippe de Girard of France, from whence the idea was taken up by Peter Durand. The idea of using hermetically sealed ‘canning’ containers, based on ab initio food preservation work in glass containers, had been proposed initially by the inventor Nicolas Appert in 1809. Appert's outstanding work, looking at increasing the nutritional and microbiological safety of foods, pioneered sterilisation technology and glass bottle preservation. Durand went on in 1812 to sell his patent to two entrepreneurs, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, who refined the process and product. Donkin and Hall established the world's first commercial canning factory in Southwark Park Road, London, UK. Unfortunately, the earliest tin cans were sealed by soldering based on a tin–lead alloy. A cumulative poisoning causing persistent ingestion did occur after a period owing to the toxic nature of the lead in the solder, which was particularly enhanced when the contents of the can were mildly acidic. As a result, a double‐seamed three‐piece can began to be used from 1900. In later times the lead‐based solder was replaced with arc welding of the sheet ‘tinplate’.
Tinplate became widely popular as it represented a stable, long‐lasting, and impenetrable means of packaging for foods. The choice of packaging used conveys information as to the value of the product. For example, since approximately 2015 (and unchanged as of 2019), and depending on the source, glass is valued at US$0.1–0.6/kg (recovered glass US$0.02/kg), aluminium is valued at US$2–4/kg, tinplate is valued at US$0.7–1.1/kg, and higher grade paperboard is valued at US$0.3–0.6/kg; these contrast with most routine polyolefins (cheaper plastics, such as polypropylene [PP] and polyethylene [PE]), which are valued at US$0.1–0.5/kg. Therefore, choosing glass, which is dense (2.5–3.4 times that of paper and plastic), with a prerequisite for a greater than 0.2 cm wall thickness for strength, in the modern era suggests a high‐value content since glass is both expensive and heavy and, therefore, has associated increased shipping costs. For many premium products the additional cost may be deflected by the large cost of the contents. For example, the cost of a can of green beans versus the cost of a bottle of champagne. In the former the can cost is approximately £0.02–0.05, whereas in the latter the bottle cost is approximately £0.50–1.00; this is because in the latter the contents cost at least 500 times more.
A series of different types of pharmaceutical packaging from across a 100 year period are shown in Figure 1.1. Amber glassware represents about 30% of medicine bottles. Modern medicine bottles are often fabricated from polyester tinted to mimic the old‐style amber glass bottles. A blue‐tinted bottle is shown in the insert in Figure 1.1a. Other forms of bottles, such as frosted or tinted vessels, were also used across products in the past; in modern times, these are used to aid product promotion. Figure 1.1b shows all‐aluminium screw‐top medicine cans that were used in the past but are used much less in the modern era. These have been superseded in many respects by the push‐out or ‘blister pack’