adammil1
Titanium
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Location
- New Haven, CT
I was wondering if we have any glass experts out there in this site who could provide a better understanding of glass for me?
A lot of articles out there seem to indicate that it could be more challenging to make billions of vaccine vials than it actually would be to actually make billions of doses of vaccine.
Unfortunately most of these same articles are very short on technical details. So I was wondering if anyone here knows anything about glass and what makes borosilicate glass so special for the application? I have even seen articles that said even the sand itself used to make it is in short supply. What is so special about the sand that makes is so hard to come by for the application?
I get that the glass needs to handle temperature swings of close to freezing all the way up to room temperature, and be sterile but aren't there other high end common glasses that can handle temperature swings like Pyrex for example? One other thing unique to the current situation is I doubt the glass used for the first wave will need to maintain a vaccine for a long shelf life. Unlike a flu vaccine that i could see sitting around at a pharmacy for a few weeks/months somehow I suspect in the first wave the demand will be so high that most of this stuff will likely be used within days of leaving the filling line. I suppose maybe if they make and bottle a lot of it before the FDA approval maybe it could be sitting on pallets for a while, but then again maybe if lower grades of glass have shorter shelf life you could start using then after the approval of the vaccine when the stuff is leaving ther fill plant and headed straight out for distribution.
I realize tooling up to make billions of anything is a huge undertaking but why do all the articles stress the glass being the weakest link and not even the making of billions of syringes?
I wonder how many glass vials are used each year world wide for the flu season alone? Interestingly enough rather than asking that we hold off a few months on the flu vaccine to save vials for a Covid19 vaccine which even Faucci is saying could come at the end of the year the experts are all telling us to get the flu vaccine this fall to help keep the hospitals empty to fight Covid19. Is borosilicate at least recyclable so it isn't a total loss for the system? I wonder if the vials can be sterilized allowing for multiple uses.
Motionguru If you are reading this I thought glass bottle making machinery was a huge part of your business, you guys seeing the mad rush from all of this?
A lot of articles out there seem to indicate that it could be more challenging to make billions of vaccine vials than it actually would be to actually make billions of doses of vaccine.
Unfortunately most of these same articles are very short on technical details. So I was wondering if anyone here knows anything about glass and what makes borosilicate glass so special for the application? I have even seen articles that said even the sand itself used to make it is in short supply. What is so special about the sand that makes is so hard to come by for the application?
I get that the glass needs to handle temperature swings of close to freezing all the way up to room temperature, and be sterile but aren't there other high end common glasses that can handle temperature swings like Pyrex for example? One other thing unique to the current situation is I doubt the glass used for the first wave will need to maintain a vaccine for a long shelf life. Unlike a flu vaccine that i could see sitting around at a pharmacy for a few weeks/months somehow I suspect in the first wave the demand will be so high that most of this stuff will likely be used within days of leaving the filling line. I suppose maybe if they make and bottle a lot of it before the FDA approval maybe it could be sitting on pallets for a while, but then again maybe if lower grades of glass have shorter shelf life you could start using then after the approval of the vaccine when the stuff is leaving ther fill plant and headed straight out for distribution.
I realize tooling up to make billions of anything is a huge undertaking but why do all the articles stress the glass being the weakest link and not even the making of billions of syringes?
I wonder how many glass vials are used each year world wide for the flu season alone? Interestingly enough rather than asking that we hold off a few months on the flu vaccine to save vials for a Covid19 vaccine which even Faucci is saying could come at the end of the year the experts are all telling us to get the flu vaccine this fall to help keep the hospitals empty to fight Covid19. Is borosilicate at least recyclable so it isn't a total loss for the system? I wonder if the vials can be sterilized allowing for multiple uses.
Motionguru If you are reading this I thought glass bottle making machinery was a huge part of your business, you guys seeing the mad rush from all of this?