Blow Molding in the Medical Industry

Blow molding has a myriad of uses in our daily lives, everything from water bottles to milk gallons to plastic storage drums—they’re all made from this process. Plastic is heated until it’s soft enough to be shaped and then air pressure is used to inflate the plastic until it fits the mold surrounding it. The process itself is fairly complex compared to the water bottle you end up taking a drink from, but blow molding isn’t just used for your everyday storage of liquids.

The medical industry has many uses for the vast potential of these plastic products. Whether it’s for storing medicine, chemicals, serums, or anything else, the storage needs of the medical industry necessitate huge quantities of plastic products.  These products can’t be made of just any plastic or at any quality. If they’re meant to hold important medicine or chemicals, they have to be able to withstand permeation, leaks, or discoloration that might compromise their important contents.

Part of that may include a post-mold fluorination, where the plastic products are exposed to fluorine gas in a sealed reactor, making the products less susceptible to permeation, discoloration, or odor emission. As we mentioned before, many of the substances that are held in these products must be stored with the utmost care and precaution. Some cannot be contaminated under any circumstances and others may be hazardous if the products were to be breached or leak.

The blow-molded products have to be precise—even the smallest measurements matter when it comes to the requirements of the medical industry. Imprecise measurements or poorly made products could be a disaster for medical professionals and their patients alike. A product that needs to hold a specific amount of medicine clearly needs to hold that exact amount—no more, no less. Anything else could be quite dangerous.

That’s where we come in at VI Plastics. The name itself stands for the products that we make—class six medical grade plastics. At our 35,000 square foot facility in in San Antonio, we use high quality plastics manufactured per ISO9001:2015 standards. We have the capabilities to manufacture everything from plastic drums to disposable sharps containers and everything in between.

If you already have a mold on hand, give us a call and we can give you a quote. And if you need a custom mold made, then we can get started on our custom mold design process. It’s an involved, step-by-step process that takes your needs into consideration and brings a solution to life in the form of a custom design mold. From there we can begin manufacturing the high quality, safe, and durable plastic products that the medical industry requires.

Since 1992, VI Plastics has been producing blow-molded products with the quality and precision that our customers demand. Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about our capabilities and how we can make blow molding work for your needs.