Soda lime pharmaceutical glasses

There are many different types of glasses made that can have an impact of the photodegradation of pharmaceuticals and their testing results. Among these types are fused quartz, soda-lime, borosilicate (e.g., Pyrex) and a variety of colored glasses. These glasses come in a variety of different shapes such as float, sheet, plate, and cylinder blown glass. They may be chemically treated, coated or laminated with plastic, clear or tinted. 

Table 2 Typical compositions and thermal expansions of soda lime and borosilicate pharmaceutical glasses...

For packaging, transportation, storage of liquids, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc., a high variety of hollowware is produced in the shape of bottles and tubes. Most of the products are made from soda-lime glass (Table 3.4-3) directly from the glass melt. Vials and ampoules are manufactured from tubes for pharmaceuticals these are made from chemically resistant borosilicate glass. 

For pharmaceutical packaging, borosilicate glasses are preferred to standard soda-lime-silica since they are more chemically resistant. In fact, standard glass is not completely inert since mobile alkali are leached into the contained product (Chapter 5). Therefore, low alkaline concentration glass containers have been developed. In the field of elevated temperature applications, low thermal expansion glasses are used. Pyrex glass is the most well known. Some manufacturers also tried to develop tempered containers from standard glass for the same purpose. These resist expansion until thermal shock stresses exceed the built-in residual stresses and then brittle fracture... 

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