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Aluminum bottle bound for mainstream beverage use

New hybrid technology makes high-volume ‘bottle-can’ manufacturing less expensive, faster, and more sustainable than existing process, for beverage products such as Eaux Vives’ Eska Water.

ALUMINUM SHEETS. The C2C bottle-cans are created from cold-rolled sheets of aluminum, containing 57%-plus PCR content.
ALUMINUM SHEETS. The C2C bottle-cans are created from cold-rolled sheets of aluminum, containing 57%-plus PCR content.

For about a decade, aluminum bottles for beverages have beckoned to brand marketers, the package’s eye-catching, silver surface and shaping opportunities providing a powerful brand differentiator. But the cost has been less than attractive to those requiring high volumes. Premium, short-run niche-market products and limited-edition promotional packages have made up the bulk of aluminum beverage-bottle applications so far.

“The marketing world loves the aluminum bottle,” says Ed Martin, business development manager for bottle manufacturer Exal Corp. , Youngstown, OH. “A lot of people like what you can do graphically, as well as with shaping. But from the standpoint of cost and sustainability, there are some challenges to the bottles because of the way they have been made using impact extrusion.”

To address these challenges, Exal has invested eight years and many millions of dollars to engineer a new manufacturing process that allows for the production of aluminum bottles that weigh 30% to 40% less than cans made via impact extrusion (IE), at substantially faster line speeds. The technology, called Coil-to-Can (C2C), also utilizes from 57% to 65% post-consumer recycled aluminum alloy to manufacture the bottles, as opposed to the 99.7% pure virgin aluminum required for IE.

Martin says these new benefits build upon aluminum’s existing strengths as a beverage package. Among them, he cites aluminum’s “superior barrier properties, break-resistance, and UV protection.” He adds, “In terms of sustainability, aluminum cans are the most desirable product in the recycling stream, as the use of recycled aluminum requires only 5 percent of the energy required to manufacture virgin aluminum.”

Using C2C, Exal expects to give aluminum bottles “a seat at the table with glass and PET,” Martin says. “Aluminum bottles can now be given full consideration for higher-volume beverage applications.”

Best of breeds merged

In Martin’s opinion, the standard aluminum beverage can, or the drawn and wall ironed (DWI) can, is “possibly the hardest working package in the business.” Manufactured using a mechanical cold-forming process that starts when a flat blank is punched from a very stiff, cold-rolled sheet of aluminum, cans are formed through cupping, forming, and ironing processes. Through decades of engineering, the DWI can has been optimized in terms of wall thickness and manufacturing speed—reaching from 2,400 to 3,000 cans/min.

In contrast, IE was developed to produce a heavier-wall aerosol container that can withstand greater internal pressure. The process involves pushing a mandrel into a die cylinder containing an aluminum slug with up to 250 tons per square inch of force. Through the impact, the metal of the slug is forced to flow up along the inside of the die creating a seamless can body.

As IE has evolved, manufacturers have taken advantage of the softness of the container’s pure aluminum alloy to add shaping capabilities to the necking area. “So you saw necking grow from just being able to work the very top of the container into a lot of shaped aerosol containers,” explains Martin. From there, manufacturers began to offer threaded bottle openings, bringing resealable aluminum cans to the beverage market.

One advantage of the IE process for beverage cans is the high-quality graphics capabilities, achieved through the use of custom, solvent-based inks, custom basecoats, the curing and drying process, and emerging plate technologies. However, the production speed for IE aluminum bottles, at 200 cans/min, lags far behind DWI.

Therefore, as beverage marketers weighed the relative advantages of these processes for the manufacture of their packaging, it became a trade-off between efficiency and cost versus shelf-impact. Says Martin: “Then you start balancing, ‘Well, I can make a very lightweight aluminum package, but it will be a DWI beverage container. Or, I can make something that has a lot of appeal from a shape and graphics standpoint, but it’s going to be more expensive, and it’s not going to be as sustainable as perhaps it could be.’”

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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Food Products at PACK EXPO Southeast
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