Medicine and packaging
Medicine and packaging An ampoule (also ampul and ampule) is a small sealed vial which is used to contain and preserve a sample
, usually a solid or liquid. Ampoules are made of glass. Modern ampoules are most commonly used to contain pharmaceuticals and chemicals that must be protected from air and contaminants. They are hermetically sealed by melting the thin top with an open flame, and usually opened by snapping off the neck. The space above the chemical may be filled with an inert gas before sealing. The walls of glass ampoules are usually sufficiently strong to be brought into a glovebox without any difficulty. Glass ampoules are more expensive than bottles and other simple containers, but there are many situations where their superior imperviousness to gases and liquids and all-glass interior surface are worth the extra cost. Examples of chemicals sold in ampoules are injectable pharmaceuticals, air-sensitive reagents
like tetrakis(triphenylphosphine)palladium(0),
hygroscopic materials like deuterated solvents and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid, and analytical standards. Ampoules can be pressurised, have air evacuated from them, and have the air in the ampoule replaced with other gasses, often inert ones. The radio-pharmaceutical
Xenon-133 often is packaged in glass ampoules and specially-shaped glass ampoules have long been used for samples of gaseous elements, such as all of the Column 18 Noble Gasses save radon (mainly because it is radioactive with a half life less than half a week) and special thick-walled quartz and fluorite ampoules under high pressure containing fluorine and chlorine liquified by the high pressure Teflon ampoules have been developed, based on the concept of the Teflon jug for high-molarity hydrofluoric acid, for containing chemicals that would corrode and/or ignite glass and/or contaminate themselves, corrode, or disintegrate metal containers where the reagent does not passivate the metal by rapidly forming a layer of a new inert compound on the metal surface reliably and predictably or at all. Photosensitive chemicals like many 14-dihydromorphinone opioids like hydromorphone and oxymorphone, various silver salts and so on can be packaged in ampoules of smoked glass, glass with chemicals added in manufacturing that filter out ultraviolet and other types of light, or be made with an opaque top and bottom (usually painted with opaque paint) and the rest of the ampoule wrapped in thick paper.
Historic ampoules
Historically, ampoules were used to contain a small sample of a person’s blood after death, which was entombed alongside them in many Christian catacombs. It was originally believed that only martyrs were given this burial treatment, though it is suspected to have been a widely practiced tradition
Production and usage
Modern glass ampoules are produced industrially from short lengths of glass tubing, shaped by heating with gas torches and gravity in automated production lines. Computer vision techniques are usually employed for quality control.
Filling
The filling and sealing of ampoules may be done by automated machinery on an industrial scale, or by hand in small-scale industries and laboratory. Ampoule filling machines can be categorized in three categories called automatic machine, semi automatic machine and manual (hand-operated) machines.
Blank ampoules can be purchased from scientific glass supply houses and sealed with a small gas torch.
A Schlenk line may be used for sealing under inert atmospheres. There is procedure of purging nitrogen before and
after filling liquid into ampoules in order to remove atmospheric air available inside the ampoules
