With the improvement of the level of plastics applications and the development of domestic plastics processing machinery, more and more new products continue to enter people's production and life. In recent years, a new type of packaging bottle --- biaxially oriented polypropylene hot filling bottles "Abbreviation BOPP Hot Filling Bottle" has received extensive attention.
BOPP hot filling bottle is a new type of packaging container made from polypropylene resin as raw material and adopting injection (pulling)-pull-blowing technology. The bottle can be widely used in traditional packaging markets such as mineral water, carbonated beverages, edible oil, seasonings, etc.; low cost, high temperature resistance makes it outstanding in hot filling packaging such as tea, fruit and vegetable juice, sports drinks and health drinks. : In addition, it is even more outstanding in terms of safety, environmental friendliness, hygiene, and taste retention of the contents, and is entering the field of dairy products and large infusion packaging. At present, BOPP hot-filled bottles have been widely used in foreign countries, especially in Japan. In the past two years, with the introduction of molding processing equipment in the Chinese market, the bottle has rapidly become the new darling of the market.
While optimistic about the market prospects of BOPP hot filling bottles, the problems in its development should not be ignored. The author has initiated a brief analysis of the BOPP hot-fill bottle market conditions and related factors.
2 Significant Competitive Advantage The following is a comparison of the performance of several plastic bottles, from which one can see the advantages of BOPP hot filling bottles.
The biggest competitor of BOPP hot-fill bottles is PET bottles. Compared with PET hot-filled bottles, BOPP hot-filled bottles have obvious advantages in high temperature resistance, bottle type processing, cost, waste recycling, etc., and they are slightly inferior in terms of gloss and barrier properties, but are processed by biaxial stretching. Can be improved.
PET bottles have entered the market for many years and have become the mainstream packaging materials for edible oil and beverage bottles. At the same time, the demand for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals is also increasing. In recent years, with the sudden emergence of tea beverages, PET hot filling bottles have become The fastest growing varieties of PET bottles have an annual growth rate of more than 50%. In 1996, the production and sales volume of PET bottles in China reached 3 billion, and reached 10 billion in 2002. During this period, the average annual growth rate was 18%, becoming the largest increase in plastic packaging materials. PET bottle packaging has occupied a major share of the domestic beverage packaging market: 95% of bottled water and 70% of carbonated beverages are packaged in polyester bottles, accounting for more than 60% of total beverage production. Some experts predict that China is in the stage of rapid development of PET beverage packaging. The demand for PET bottles for packaging will increase by double digits each year. In 2005, the consumption of PET preforms will exceed 20 billion.
It can be imagined that BOPP hot-filled bottles will become competitors of plastic packaging materials such as PET bottles (especially PET hot-fill bottles) due to their advantages of high temperature resistance and low cost, and have broad market prospects. At the same time, BOPP hot-fill bottles have also faced certain difficulties in entering the mature PET bottle market.
In addition, in terms of large infusion packaging, Shi Guifang et al. selected 25 patients with 10% glucose infusion and compared the effects of glass bottles and polypropylene bottle infusion on safe infusion. The results showed that polypropylene infusion can not only ensure the quality of infusion solutions. , And easy to use, insert the infusion needle needle does not occur when the plug off, debris and other conditions.
At present, more than 90% of infusions in China are still packed in glass bottles, while foreign infusions are mostly packaged in high quality plastic bottles and plastic bags. In the future, China will appropriately control the packaging of glass bottles and encourage the use of plastic bottles (bags). At the same time, policies such as the testing of uniform packaging materials, the stability of liquids and packaging materials, and other indicators will be issued. These have created a good opportunity for the development of BOPP hot filling bottles.
3 Large market demand The author believes that the most important and most competitive market for BOPP hot-filled bottles is hot-filled beverage packaging, followed by liquid dairy product packaging and large infusion packaging.
The hot-filled beverage packaging uses tea beverage as an example. The packaging used in the world includes glass bottles, metal cans, paper aluminum-plastic composite brick type Tetra Pak, PET bottles (PET/PEN), etc. Tablet cans, Tetra Pak and PET bottles, of which PET hot filling bottles and BOPP hot filling bottles are the best choice. School of Food Science, Southwest Agricultural University, Liu Qinjin, etc., through comparative studies on raw material properties, process characteristics, bottle properties, and preform preservation performance, show that the latter is more competitive than the former [3].
It is estimated that the current market capacity of BOPP hot-filled bottles in the beverage sector exceeds 600 million/year.
It is expected that the output of beverages in China will continue to grow at a double-digit high rate of growth in the coming years. In particular, tea beverages and various functional beverages will have a higher growth rate in the domestic market. It can be seen that BOPP hot-filling bottles have good development prospects in the beverage field and have great development potential.
Due to its high temperature resistance and secondary bactericidal properties, large infusion packaging makes BOPP hot-filled bottles more advantageous in large infusion drug packaging and dairy product packaging.
Infusion is one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical varieties in China in recent years. In terms of packaging, the vast majority use glass bottles, accounting for more than 90% of the national market. The development trend of infusion packaging in the next few years in China is to appropriately control the packaging of glass bottles and develop high-quality plastic bottles (bags). In addition, the rapid development of Sino-foreign joint ventures will greatly promote the development of large infusion varieties and quality in China. They basically use plastic bottles or soft bags.
It is estimated that the demand for BOPP hot-filling bottles in the domestic large infusion market will reach 100 million in the past two years. Some experts predict that in the future, China's infusion packaging will form a pattern of glass bottles, soft plastic infusion bags and hard BOPP hot filling bottles.
Liquid Dairy Products Dairy products are one of the fastest-growing varieties in the Chinese food industry, especially with liquid dairy products growing at a very fast rate. At present, apart from the differences in printing, the packaging of liquid dairy products in China is almost identical in shape, and there is a serious problem of convergence. For example, various liquid dairy products mainly use carton packs or plastic bags represented by Tetra Pak and Combi Boxes; yoghurts are mainly quadruple or six-joint cups; various flavored milk and soy milk are opaque or translucent. PE bottles are the main products; all kinds of lactic acid bacteria packages are similar to PE bottles. BOPP hot filling bottles can create a personalized packaging image for dairy products companies, especially for the yogurt and lactic acid bacteria markets targeting children and women.
It is estimated that the current market capacity of BOPP hot-filled bottles in the field of liquid dairy products is approximately 350 million/year. It is predicted that in the next 5-10 years, the development speed of Chinese milk and dairy products will be more than 10%, and BOPP hot-filled bottles will be widely used for their excellent performance.
In addition to the application in other fields, the current domestic market capacity of BOPP hot filling bottles exceeds 1 billion/year. The future of BOPP hot-filling bottles is promising.
4 Aseptic hot and cold irrigation technology has a wide variety of beverages. For some sensitive beverages (such as tea, fruit and vegetable juices, sports drinks and health drinks) filled with plastic bottles, there are two kinds of safe processes from the microbiological point of view. Filling and aseptic cold filling. Domestically, hot filling is the mainstay. Aseptic cold filling technology has developed rapidly in recent years. The products, bottling containers and caps in the aseptic cold filling are individually sterilized and filled under aseptic conditions without adding preservatives or heat treatment during or after the production process. In hot filling, products, bottling containers, and caps are heated to achieve sterilization.