CEMS study of tin in the hot end coatings of glass containers

Tin oxide coatings are applied to glass containers as adhesion promoters for the organic lubricants. Here, room temperature conversion electron Mossbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) is used to analyse a range of tin oxide coated containers. Readable GEMS curves could be obtained even for the thinnest (30 CTU or about 6 nm) coatings. The hyperfine parameters calculated from the spectral curves show that tin is tetravalent in crystalline form with a preferential grain orientation, which is reduced on annealing. The presence of tin in other oxidation states and dissolved in the matrix was excluded.