There is no doubt that the manufacture of this component is an essential element for any industry, especially the pharmaceutical one.
While it is true that everything that makes up a material is indispensable for its manufacture, it is no less true that the technology used also plays an important role in ensuring that the product meets the expected results.
This process involves a complex step where technological innovation seeks to achieve efficiency as a maximum result. Only in this way is it possible to generate quality. The manufacture of the containers used in the pharmaceutical industry responds to highly specific needs, being a highly personalized product. This requires the injection moulding machine process.
But what exactly is this method about? According to Wikipedia, this engineering technique is nothing more than “a semi-continuous process that consists of injecting a polymer, ceramic or a metal in a molten state into a closed mold under pressure and cold, through a small hole called a gate”.
The companies in charge of their manufacture make these containers with superior components and state-of-the-art equipment that employ this popular process, in large volumes, all under the strictest quality controls.
The Beginnings of Plastic Injection Machines
The American chemical inventor John Wesley Hvatt was the first person to patent a model of an injection moulding machine in 1872. Thus it is compiled in the existing records that are collected from the work of this man who history defines as the character who simplified the process of celluloid production.
His work began when he was only 18 years old, when he developed what comes before plastic, dissolving cellulose in camphor and ethanol. With his celluloid, the initial steps were taken for the subsequent advance of the film industry at the end of the 19th century.
However, the work of this distinguished forger of innovation for the plastic industry did not stop there, since on his way he developed many other inventions around the world of this new and revolutionary material, even patenting the first model of injection moulding machine.
This model included a piston that contained a melt of melted cellulosic derivatives or cellulose in the affected cavity or mould. However, historical reports attribute the German company Cellon-Werkw ecomotive as the pioneer of the modern injection moulding machine. In 1928, this brand presented a patent including the description of nitrocellulose (Celluloid).
But due to the flammable character of nitrocellulose other cellulosic derivatives such as cellulose ethanoate was handled later. The British John Beard and Peter Delafield, due to certain differences in the translation of the German patent, developed in parallel the same technique in England, with the English patent rights for the company F.A. Hughes Ltd.
The plastic present in the present and future
Today, this process continues to revolutionize the industrial sector from the pharmaceutical, automotive and all those who involve the plastic. The innovations in terms of improvement are developed and applied every day, so this material will continue to be present in human evolution.