Vending

Coke bottlers produce test materials for COVID-19 kits

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June 2, 2020

Southeastern Container, a PET preform and bottle manufacturing cooperative funded and managed by a group of Coca-Cola bottlers, has begun producing test tubes for use in COVID-19 kits, according to a press release. Utilizing several injection molding preform tools, the manufacturing cooperative has already produced over 7 million tubes for testing kits.

"When the U..S Department of Health and Human Services reached out to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for assistance in finding a COVID-19 test tube solution, we considered several options to help industry scale up production," Lonnie Love, lead scientist for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's COVID-19 advanced manufacturing initiatives, said in a press release.

At ORNL's request, Coca-Cola Consolidated, the nation's largest Coke bottler, provided samples of their preforms and the laboratory worked with COVID-19 testing company Longhorn Vaccine-Diagnostics to confirm that the tubes met test kit criteria.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL worked with Coca-Cola Consolidated to determine whether soda bottle preforms, which are small plastic tubes heated and blown into a bottle shape to hold carbonated beverages, can be used as test tubes in COVID-19 kits. These kits include a swab, saline solution and a plastic tube to enclose the swab during transport. Soda bottle preforms are the perfect size to hold the long COVID-19 swab. The soda bottle preforms also contain a screw-top cap that is tamper-proof and safely seals the tube, preventing leakage and exposure during transport.

Once the test tubes are produced, sterilization is usually required before they can be used in test kits. Sandia National Laboratories, a Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration lab with headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is using its Gamma Irradiation Facility and a team of radiation science experts to develop protocols for sterilizing the preforms without damaging the materials.

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