Methods for Evaluating Hermetic Closures for Screw-Capped Bottles

With the described method, a large number of sealed bottles can be tested to determine their effectiveness, integrity, and reliability in preserving an inert atmosphere. The method consists of placing milligram quantities of dry ice into the bottles, capping them, and periodically weighing them on an analytical balance; leaky bottles are detected by a loss in weight. This method can be applied to test a large number of bottles with a minimum of effort and manpower and without complicated instrumentation. The data presented are highly reproducible and correlate well with data from other methods and with the physical defects of the bottles.