When was aluminum foil first introduced?

22 Jul.,2024

 

The History of Aluminum Foil Packaging - KitchenDance

The origin of aluminum foil can be traced by to the early s. Life Savers&#;one of today&#;s most popular candies&#;were first packaged in foil in . To this day, the treats are encased in the world-famous aluminum foil tube. The uses of foil have grown over the past 100 years to a nearly endless count. From Christmas tree ornaments to spacecraft insulation, TV dinners to medicine packets&#;aluminum foil has, in many ways, improved both our products and our lives.

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Top 4 Facts about Aluminum Foil 

Early commercial use of aluminum foil

One of the first commercial uses of aluminum foil came in . Foil leg bands were used to identify racing pigeons.

Innovative consumer product delivery

Jiffy Pop Popcorn, released in , combined a heavy-gauge foil pan and an expandable, light-gauge foil cover to deliver their "magic treat."

Effective for energy conservation

The "shiny" side of aluminum foil is 88 percent reflective, making it one of the best and most efficient insulators for solar heat.

Billions of containers are produced each year

Approximately 7 billion aluminum foil containers are produced annually. This production rate nets to 220 containers produced every second.

How aluminum foil Is Made

Aluminum foil is produced by rolling aluminum slabs cast from molten aluminum in a rolling mill to the desired thickness. To maintain a constant thickness, a technician monitors the rolling mill sensors to ensure the pressure on the slab is correct.

  • Sensors are able to tell the technician if the pressure is too great or not enough, and then the technician can adjust the rollers to apply more or less pressure. It is then coiled and sent to the cold rolling mill.
  • The foil is doubled in the cold rolling mill to the desired thickness to avoid breakage because of the thinness.
  • Aluminum foil provides a complete barrier to light, oxygen, moisture, and bacteria. For this reason, foil is used extensively in food and pharmaceutical packaging.
  • It is also used to make aseptic packaging that enables storage of perishable goods without refrigeration.

Growth Of The Aluminum Foil And Packaging Market

  • The first pre-formed, all-foil food packaging containers appeared on the market in .
  • This grew into the complete line of die-formed and air-formed foil containers sold in every supermarket.
  • A spectacular period of growth occurred in the s and s. Packed in compartmental trays, TV dinners reshaped the food products market.
  • Packaging foil is divided into three categories:
    • Household/institutional foil
    • Semi-rigid foil containers
    • Flexible packaging.

For decades, the use of foil has grown steadily in each of these categories.

  • Food Preparation: Aluminum foil is "dual-ovenable" and can be used in convection and fan-assisted ovens. A popular use of foil is covering thinner poultry and meat sections to prevent overcooking. The USDA also recommends limited uses of aluminum foil in microwave ovens.
  • Insulation: Aluminum foil is 88 percent reflective and is widely used for thermal insulation, heat exchanges, and cable liners. Foil-backed building insulation reflects heat, and aluminum sheets provide a protective vapor barrier.
  • Electronics: Foil in electrical capacitors provides compact storage for electric charges. If the foil surface is treated, the oxide coating is insulated. Aluminum foil capacitors are commonly found in electrical equipment, including television sets and computers.
  • Geochemical Sampling: Aluminum foil is used by geochemists to protect rock samples. Foil provides a seal from organic solvents and does not taint the samples as they are transported from the field to the lab.

Art and Decoration: Anodizing aluminum foil creates an oxide layer on the aluminum surface that can accept colored dyes or metallic salts. This technique uses aluminum to create inexpensive, brightly colored foils.

Future of Aluminum Foil 

Increasingly, aluminum foil is being merged with flexible films to create lightweight packages. This technology allows the packages to expand during production, then contract as the product is consumed. The packaging of pet food, tuna, coffee and soups alone produces 13 billion packages that are candidates for replacement with flexible foil-based packages.

How did Aluminum Foil come into existence?

  • The earliest production of aluminum foil occurred in France in .
  • In , Bern, Switzerland&#;based Tobler began wrapping its chocolate bars in foil.
  • Their unique triangular bar, Toblerone, is still widely available today.
  • Production of aluminum foil in the United States started in .
  • The first commercial use was packaging Life Savers into their now world-famous shiny metal tube.
  • The demand for aluminum foil skyrocketed during World War II.
  • Early military applications used foil strips dropped from bombers to confuse and misguide radar tracking systems.
  • Aluminum foil was so vital to the defense that families were encouraged to save foil strips.
  • In many towns, the collected foil balls could be exchanged for free entry to a movie theater.
  • One of the most innovative uses of aluminum foil came in the early s. The aluminum Christmas tree debuted&#;complete with foil-covered branches and decorations.

Why Foil Is Shiny On One Side

Aluminum foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminum is rolled during the final pass. It is difficult to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to roll a single sheet of foil. For the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the roll. When the sheets are later separated, the two inside surfaces are matte, and the two outside surfaces are shiny.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Is Aluminum Foil Popular In Packaging?

Aluminum foil is favored for its ability to provide a complete barrier to light, oxygen, moisture, and bacteria, making it perfect for food preservation.

How Is Aluminum Foil Produced For Packaging?

Aluminum foil for packaging is made by rolling large slabs of aluminum until they are less than 0.2 mm thick, ensuring flexibility and strength.

Are There Environmental Concerns With Aluminum Foil?

While aluminum foil is recyclable, concerns arise from its energy-intensive production process and the tendency of consumers to discard it, leading to environmental waste.

Aluminium foil

A thin, flexible sheet of aluminium, used for wrapping food and other purposes

A roll of aluminium foil

Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in American English; occasionally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves. The foil is pliable and can be readily bent or wrapped around objects. Thin foils are fragile and are sometimes laminated with other materials such as plastics or paper to make them stronger and more useful.

Annual production of aluminium foil was approximately 850,000 tonnes (940,000 tons) in Europe in ,[1] and 600,000 tonnes (660,000 tons) in the U.S. in .[2] Approximately 75% of aluminium foil is used for packaging of foods, cosmetics, and chemical products, and 25% is used for industrial applications (e.g., thermal insulation, electrical cables, and electronics).[2] It can be easily recycled.

Aluminium foil supplanted tin foil in the mid 20th century. In the United Kingdom and United States it is often informally called "tin foil", just as steel cans are often still called "tin cans". Metallised films are sometimes mistaken for aluminium foil, but are actually polymer films coated with a thin layer of aluminium.

History

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Precursors

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Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before its aluminium counterpart. Tin foil was marketed commercially from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. The term "tin foil" survives in the English language as a term for the newer aluminium foil. Tin foil is less malleable than aluminium foil and tends to give a slight tin taste to food wrapped in it. Tin foil has been supplanted by aluminium and other materials for wrapping food.[3]

The first audio recordings on phonograph cylinders were made on tin foil.[4]

Invention

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Tin was first replaced by aluminium in , when the first aluminium foil rolling plant, Dr. Lauber, Neher & Cie. was opened in Emmishofen, Switzerland. The plant, owned by J. G. Neher & Sons, the aluminium manufacturers, was founded in in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, at the foot of the Rhine Falls, whose energy powered the process. In December , Neher's sons, along with Dr. Lauber, had invented the endless rolling process, by which they discovered that aluminium foil could be used as a protective barrier.[5]

In , Bern-based Tobler began wrapping its chocolate bars in aluminium foil, including the unique triangular chocolate bar, Toblerone.[6]

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The first use of foil in the United States was in for wrapping Life Savers, candy bars, and gum.[7]

Properties

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Microscopic close-up of aluminium foil on the back of an intumescent rubber strip

Aluminium foil has a thickness less than 0.2 mm (7.9 mils); thinner gauges down to 6 micrometres (0.24 mils) are also commonly used.[8] Standard household foil is typically 0.016 mm (0.63 mils) thick, and heavy-duty household foil is typically 0.024 mm (0.94 mils)

Foil may have a non-stick coating on only one side.[9]

Although aluminium is non-magnetic, it is a good conductor, so even a thin sheet reflects almost all of an incident electric wave. At frequencies more than 100 MHz, the transmitted electric field is attenuated by more than 80 decibels (dB), that is less than 10&#;8 = 0. of the power gets through.[10]

Thin sheets of aluminium are not very effective at attenuating low-frequency magnetic fields. The shielding effectiveness is dependent upon the skin depth. A field travelling through one skin depth will lose about 63% of its energy (it is attenuated to 1/e = 1/2.718... of its original energy). Thin shields also have internal reflections that reduce the shielding effectiveness.[11]

Manufacture

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A roll of aluminium foil, with micrometer showing a thickness of 13 μm (0.5 mils)

The continuous casting method is much less energy-intensive and has become the preferred process.[12] It is difficult to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, and to avoid this, as well as reducing tearing, increasing production rates, and controlling thickness,[13] for the final pass when producing thicknesses below 0.025 mm (1 mil), two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. After the rollers, the two sheets are separated, which produces foil with one shiny side and one matte side.

The two sides in contact with each other are matte, and the exterior sides become shiny. The reflectivity of dull aluminium foil is 80%, while shiny embossed foil reflects about 88%.[7] The difference in thermal properties between the two sides is imperceptible without instrumentation. By Kirchhoff's law radiation, increased reflectivity decreases both absorption and emission of radiation.

Uses

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Candies in aluminium foil packaging

Aluminium foil is widely sold into the consumer market, often in rolls of 500 mm (20 in) width and several metres in length.[14]

Aluminium foil is also used for barbecuing delicate foods.[15]

As with all metallic items, aluminium foil reacts to being placed in a microwave oven. This is because of the electromagnetic fields of the microwaves inducing electric currents in the foil and high potentials at the sharp points of the foil sheet; if the potential is sufficiently high, it will cause electric arcing to areas with lower potential, even to the air surrounding the sheet. Modern microwave ovens have been designed to prevent damage to the cavity magnetron tube from microwave energy reflection, and aluminium packages designed for microwave heating are available.[16]

Environmental issues

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Some aluminium foil products can be recycled at around 5% of the original energy cost.[17]

See also

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References

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