Spotlight On Aluminum Bottles’ Plus Range

I think we don’t give enough details on some of our more popular product lines. So I thought I would spend a little time to go over the various ranges of bottles we offer at Elemental Container.

Today, we’ll go over our industrial aluminum bottle line called the Plus range. These very versatile bottles range in capacity from 50ml (1.7oz) to 32L (7 gallons).  They’re most frequently used for storing, shipping and packaging liquid or volatile products.  On our website, you will see the product names Plus 32, Plus 45 and Plus 62. 

Plain or coated, all Plus bottles are secured with a heavy-duty tamper evident cap.  They are also U.N. approved as single packaging; they can be used for the transportation of hazardous materials.

Aluminum – The Element

It’s easy to forget that aluminum is one of the basic elements of nature. Just review the periodic table of elements from high school and you’ll see that aluminum – with atomic number of 13 – is among the most basic elements. It’s right next to Silicon (atomic number of 14)

The Properties of the Element Aluminum:
Name of Element : Aluminum
Symbol of Element : Al
Atomic Number of Aluminum : 13
Atomic Mass: 26.981539 amu
Melting Point: 660.37 °C – 933.52 °K
Boiling Point: 2467.0 °C – 2740.15 °K
Number of Protons/Electrons in Aluminum : 13
Number of Neutrons in Aluminum : 14
Crystal Structure: Cubic
Density @ 293 K: 2.702 g/cm3
Color of Aluminum : silvery-white

Interestingly enough – aluminum in its pure, unalloyed state is silvery-white in color.

The Shrinking – And Greening – Of The Aluminum Can

The Aluminum Association ran an interesting article on “The Ever-Shrinking Aluminum Can”.  Some excerpts:

“Beyond aluminum cans’ advantages relating to its “stackability” and high rates of recycling, its light weight gives it an additional environmental edge over many competing packaging formats.

Broomfield, Colo.-based Ball Corporation over the past 40 years has pursued “lightweighting” as a fundamental part of its business for both economic and environmental reasons. The canmaker has repeatedly reduced both the end diameter of its cans and the amount of aluminum used in its can bodies—to the point where its aluminum cans use 40 percent less aluminum today than they did in 1970.
Ball further notes that:

• Aluminum cans are the lightest-weight beverage container—at 34 cans per pound—enabling savings in shipping and handling costs throughout the entire supply chain; and
• The average post-consumer recycled content of an aluminum can is 44 percent—the highest recycled content of any beverage container.”

The Container Recycling Institute has launched a campaign to achieve Zero Beverage Container Waste by 2020. Considering aluminum’s superior recycling rates, this bodes well for the aluminum packaging industry.