What Is Blister in Packaging Industry? 

Blister packaging, generally uses a transparent and intuitive plastic shell or aluminum shell to package products, which is suitable for retail.

The materials used in blister packaging are strong and widely used for packaging a variety of products such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, toys, and more. Blister packaging eliminates the need for cardboard boxes, reducing packaging costs.

What Is the Purpose of Blister Packaging？

The blister pack laminate provides sufficient formability to form dome-shaped pockets in the blister pack laminate and prevents moisture, organic and inorganic gases from entering the absorbent layer from its end faces.

Blister packaging helps maintain product integrity because products prepackaged in blister packs are shielded from adverse conditions.

In addition, blister-packaged product has the least chance of contamination, and each product unit is identified by product name, batch number, and expiration date. Therefore, blister packaging ensures the integrity of the product, from the packaging material producer directly through distribution to the consumer.

What Are the Blister Packaging Advantages and Disadvantages?

Pros

• Ensure packaging integrity of each individual dose product

• Clear product display

• Lightweight and easy to transport

• Good sealing performance to prevent moisture, dust and pollution

• No additional buffer material is required for packing

Cons

• Thermoforming plastics require tightly controlled temperature and cooling processes

• Plastics are thermally unstable

• The foil cavity must be larger than during thermoforming, increasing the overall area of the package

What Are the Application of Blister Packing?

Pharmaceutical Industry

Blister packaging is one of the main product packaging methods in the pharmaceutical industry at present. Most of the finished tablet drugs need to go through this process before they can be sold on the market.

Blister packaging in the pharmaceutical industry is the most common type, generally including aluminum-plastic and aluminum-aluminum blister. Plastic blister is suitable for packing some ordinary capsules, tablets, etc. Aluminum-aluminum blister is for packaging some medicines that need to be protected from light, and this type of blister is more airtight than aluminum-plastic packaging, so the cost is also higher.

Food Industry

The use of blister packs in the food industry is also popular. Including biscuits, lollipops, hard candies, pills, solid chocolate and chocolate syrup, jam, milkshake, vegetable oil, washing liquid, pure water and other solid and liquid/paste materials. Food blister packaging also ensures the tightness of the package and makes packing more convenient.

Consumer Goods Industry

In addition to the packaging of drugs and food, blister packaging can also be used to package some consumer goods such as toys and stationery. According to the characteristics of the product, a suitable blister material can be selected.

How Blister Packing Is Done? 

The blister machine is divided into three processes: thermoforming, cold forming and hot-cold forming, and is used for the processing of conventional films such as PVC, PVDC, Alu/Alu, Aclar and PP.

Thermoforming

Thermoforming is the unwinding of a plastic film or sheet from a reel and guiding it through a preheating station on a blister production line. The temperature of the preheat plates (upper and lower) should soften the plastic. The warm plastic then reaches the forming station, where greater pressure creates a negative mold for the blister cavity. Allow the mold to cool so that the plastic hardens again and retains its shape when removed from the mold.

If you want to make more complex shapes, use the "Plug Assist" function to partially push the warm film down into the cavity. The plugging aid will result in a more even distribution of the blister cavity walls.

Cold Forming

In the case of cold forming, the aluminum-based laminate film is simply pressed into the mold by means of a press. The aluminum will be stretched and hold the formed shape. In the industry, these blisters are known as cold-formed foil (CFF) blisters. The main advantage of cold-formed foil bubbles is that the use of aluminum provides an almost complete barrier to water and oxygen, thus extending the shelf life of the product. But cold-formed foil blisters also have some drawbacks: like slower production compared to thermoforming, packaging lacks transparency.

Hot and Cold Forming

In the thermoforming and coldforming process, the first packaging is done by thermoforming technology, and then the product is repackaged with cold formed packaging.

How Does An Automatic Blister Packing Machine Work?

Common blister packing machine (bqs machine) can be divided into three types: roller blister packaging machine, flat blister packaging machine, roller plate blister packaging machine.

Roller Blister Packaging Machine

The forming film is heated and softened by the heating device, the bubble cap is sucked out by vacuum negative pressure on the roller forming die roll, the filling device fills the package into the bubble cap, and then the covering film coated with adhesive on one side is sealed on the surface of the material with bubble cap under appropriate temperature and pressure through the roller heat sealing device, and the package is sealed in the bubble cap. Then print the batch number and press out the broken line by typing and embossing device, and finally cut the product plate of a certain size by punching and cutting device.

Flat Blister Packaging Machine

The formed film will be heated and softened by the flat plate heating device. In the flat plate forming device, the softened film is blown into a blister with compressed air. The filling device fills the package into the blister, and then sends it to the flat plate sealing device to seal the covering film and the formed film under appropriate temperature and pressure.

Roller Plate Blister Packaging Machine

Roller plate blister packaging machine is developed on the basis of roller and plate bqs packing machine, that is, it adopts plate forming device for blow molding (positive pressure forming) and roller sealing device for sealing. Its working principle is basically the same as the above two.