A screw cap or closure is a common type of closure for

bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal ...

s, jars, and

tube Tube or tubes may refer to: * ''Tube'' (2003 film), a 2003 Korean film * "Tubes" (Peter Dale), performer on the Soccer AM television show * Tube (band), a Japanese rock band * Tube & Berger, the alias of dance/electronica producers Arndt Rör ...

History

Screw caps had been used in Europe since the 1500s and a British patent was filed in 1810 by Peter Durand acting on behalf of Nicolas Appert. John Landis Mason patented in 1858 a screw-on lid for a jar that became known as the

Mason jar A Mason jar, also known as a canning jar, preserves jar or fruit jar, is a glass jar used in home canning to food preservation, preserve food. It was named after American tinsmith John Landis Mason, who patented it in 1858. The jar's mouth has a ...

Usage

A screw closure is a mechanical device which is screwed on and off of a "finish" on a container. Either continuous threads or lugs are used. It must be engineered to be cost-effective, to provide an effective seal (and barrier), to be compatible with the contents, to be easily opened by the consumer, often to be reclosable, and to comply with product, package, and environmental laws and regulations. Manufacturers may ensure the integrity of a screw cap using a cap torque tester. Some closures need to be tamper resistant and have child-resistant packaging features. A tamper-evident band is a common tamper warning for screw caps of bottles, for example.

Wine industry

Screw caps' use as an alternative to cork for sealing

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

bottles is gaining increasing support. A screw cap is a

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

cap that screws onto threads on the neck of a

, generally with a metal skirt down the neck to resemble the traditional wine capsule ("foil"). A layer of

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

(often PVDC), cork,

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Types of polyisoprene ...

, or other soft material is used as wad to make a seal with the mouth of the bottle.

Sake industry

Sake bottles are almost universally closed with screw caps (some are packed in barrels, or novelty bottles).

Sources

* Soroka, W, "Fundamentals of Packaging Technology", IoPP, 2002, * Yam, K. L., "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009, *Prlewe, J. ''Wine from Grape to Glass''. NY: Abbeville Press, 1999. * Wayne J. Mortensen and Brian K. Marks
The Failure of a Wine Closure Innovation: A Strategic Marketing Analysis
, *

ASTM ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is a standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical international standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems and s ...

D3474 Standard Practice for Calibration and Use of Torque Meters Used in Packaging Applications

External links

New Zealand Screw Cap Initiative

losure and Container Manufacturers Association(CCMA), international society of beverage technologists, {{Authority control Wine packaging and storage Packaging