PVC and PVDC are two commonly used materials for blister packaging. The characteristics of easy molding and low cost make these two materials very suitable for making blisters, but they also have hidden dangers of environmental pollution. Environmental protection issues make pharmaceutical companies start to look for materials that can be used to replace PVC and PVDC, and PP is one of them. However, PP still has some defects as a blister material. We will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these three materials for you through this article.

1.  PVC and PVDC

PVC is a hard, easy-to-stain material that has excellent thermoplastic properties and good chemical resistance. The cost of PVC is low, and it is suitable for making a variety of medicine packaging, so it is widely used by pharmaceutical companies. If PVC material is used alone to make blister packaging, its barrier rate to water vapor and oxygen may not meet the needs of some sensitive medicine, so pharmaceutical companies will choose to coat PVDC on the surface of PVC material to improve the barrier property of packaging.

PVDC coating can reduce the air permeability and moisture permeability of PVC sheets by five to ten times, and pharmaceutical companies can achieve different barrier effects by using different coating thicknesses. PVDC, like PVC, has the characteristics of easy molding, and the principle of blistering is the same and can be processed by the same machine, so PVDC is also one of the commonly used blister packaging materials in the pharmaceutical industry.

PVC and PVDC are ideal blister packaging materials, but both can generate hazardous gases when incinerated, making the disposal of PVC and PVDC packaging a problem.

2.  PP

Compared to PVC and PVDC, PP has the following advantages:

●  PP material has low density. Compared with PVC material, the same weight of PP sheet can wrap more medicine.

●  PP material has excellent barrier properties. The barrier performance of uncoated PP material is almost the same as that of PVC material with PVDC coating.

●  PP material is more environmentally friendly. PP materials will not produce toxic substances when incinerated.

Although PP materials have excellent barrier properties and have no environmental problems, there are still relatively few pharmaceutical packaging made of PP materials on the market, because PP materials still have some problems in processing.

●  PP materials have very strict temperature requirements during molding and cooling. Compared with PVC, PP material has higher hardness and poor thermal stability, so it is more difficult to form.

●  PP material cannot be processed on the same packaging machine as PVC material, and its processing speed is much lower than that of PVC. Replacing new equipment will increase the production cost of the enterprise, and the machine needs to undergo accurate process verification before it can be used.

With the advancement of processing technology, PP materials may replace PVC and PVDC materials in the future and become an environmentally friendly choice for pharmaceutical packaging. At present, its potential is still worth exploring.