Research Progress in Pharmaceutical Packaging Glasses

For more than 100 years, borosilicate glass has been the preferred material for pharmaceutical packaging all around the world. With continuous development of modern medicine industry, new drugs emerge one after another, so that the safety problem of borosilicate glass in the process of liquid medicine packaging and storage becomes increasingly prominent. In the process of long-term contact with liquid medicines, especially alkaline ones, there are risks of peeling, particulate matter generation, drug failure and so on. Therefore, chemical stability of borosilicate glass, especially alkali resistance, needs to be further improved.The global spread of COVID-19 has further accelerated the development and production of high-quality borosilicate glass and new medical packaging glass in the world. Five aspects were systematically summarized in this article, including (Ⅰ) classification of pharmaceutical packaging glass circulating in the market, (Ⅱ) application fields and representative compositions of various commercial glass, (Ⅲ) key preparation processes of high quality borosilicate glass, (Ⅳ) correlations between composition,structure and property, (Ⅴ) composition and properties of novel aluminum silicate pharmaceutical packaging glasses.