It has been a long time since aluminum foil, which was once called "silver paper" and was very valuable, was used by ordinary households as "household foil" and "cooking utensils". However, the use of aluminum foil as a packaging material only has a history of 85 years.
Since ancient times. Humans have discovered many metals such as copper and iron and have been widely used. Aluminum was only recognized as a metal in the early 19th century, only 170 years ago. Therefore, the story of Napoleon III of France wearing an aluminum necklace to show off in the Palace of Versailles has been passed down to this day.
Before the mid-19th century, aluminum was always considered a precious metal that was incomparable to gold and silver. However, the Austrian chemist Bahia invented today's "wet method", also called the "Bahia method". That is, the raw ore ferrosite is dissolved with alkali and aluminum is extracted from it. Thanks to the invention of this method, channels for industrial production of aluminum were finally opened in the second half of the 19th century. Furthermore, from 1902 to 1905, aluminum foil, a type of aluminum rolled product, began industrial production in the world.
The aluminum foil manufacturing method at that time was called the "multi-layer plate rolling method". This method is to overlap several layers of aluminum plates and then repeatedly roll them with a rolling roller until they reach the specified thickness. This is an extremely primitive calendering method, so the minimum thickness of the aluminum foil can only be 1 mm, and there are many seams, so it cannot be used for industrial materials at all.
This was due to the very backward calendering technology at that time. At that time, people only knew that the rolling reduction rate of aluminum foil during rolling was related to the vertical pressure of the rolling roller; today, what is extremely important is the tensile strength of the vertical wall of the rolled material. As well as the relationship between the temperature, viscosity and rolling speed of the rolling oil, it is unknown. Therefore, aluminum foil is produced by simply pressing the laminated aluminum plates in the vertical direction with a calendering roller.
In 1910, Swiss Laubart Wikta Neher invented the continuous strip rolling method based on the basic principles of the current aluminum foil rolling method, and successfully realized the industrial production of aluminum foil. In this way, not only can aluminum foil with stable quality be produced, but the rolling speed can also be greatly increased. A practical and cheap industrial material, aluminum foil, has finally come out.
Initially, Nehel's motivation for developing industrial production was to use aluminum foil as a sealing material for airships that were popular across Europe. He finally developed a seamless strip of aluminum foil. However, as a reinforcing material for airship construction materials with sheepskin as the main material, it failed to achieve the expected purpose.
As a result, Nehale was heavily in debt and frustrated. In 1911, a Swiss chocolate company discovered the high-quality and affordable aluminum foil invented by Nehale, and used this aluminum foil as chocolate packaging material, replacing the previous tin foil. Packaging Materials. From then on, the history of aluminum foil as a packaging material began.
