Supply Chain

Aluminium foil is only as consistent as the chain that produced it. A roll can meet its thickness specification and still fail on your line because the metal came from an ingot with the wrong composition, was annealed inconsistently, or was wound with the wrong tension. Our approach is to keep the steps that decide those outcomes connected, and to make each one measurable.

Casting and hot rolling

The chain starts with molten aluminium of a controlled composition. Alloying elements are added towards a target analysis rather than a loose range, because silicon and iron content decide how the metal forms and how it behaves in a later anneal. The cast slab is hot rolled down to a transfer gauge, which sets the metallurgical starting point for everything downstream.

Cold rolling and annealing

Cold rolling reduces the strip towards foil gauge in successive passes, with intermediate annealing to soften the work-hardened metal and control grain structure. Temper is established here rather than at the end: whether you receive soft O, H22 or hard H18 foil is decided by how much reduction is applied after the last anneal.

Foil rolling and doubling

At foil gauge the strip becomes too thin to roll as a single sheet, so two sheets are rolled together and then separated — which is why foil has a bright side and a matte side. Thickness is held by automatic gauge control and then verified by measurement rather than trusted from the mill setting. Surface finish and pinhole level are controlled at this stage.

Quality gates

• Chemical composition of the cast and of the finished alloy
• Thickness profile across the full width, not only at the centre
• Tensile strength and elongation, tested to the temper you ordered
• Pinhole count, surface cleanliness and flatness
• Roll geometry: core diameter, roll diameter and winding quality

Rolls are issued with a certificate of analysis covering the properties relevant to the application. Where your process demands it we will agree the test method and the acceptance limits before the order is placed, rather than disputing them afterwards.

Converting

Foil that goes on to a converting line is finished here: lacquering for heat-seal and protective coatings, laminating to paper or film, printing, slitting to the width your machine takes, interleaving and edge conditioning. Because the lacquer or lamination decides seal and barrier performance, coating weight and cure are specified against your sealing conditions.

Packing and shipping

Finished rolls are wrapped against moisture, fitted to wooden pallets wound eye to sky or eye to wall depending on how you will unload and store them, and protected for sea freight. Container loading is planned so the pallets arrive with the packaging intact rather than with the bottom rolls crushed.

Why this matters to a buyer

When the chain is split across several suppliers, a quality problem turns into a search for its cause: the foil mill blames the ingot, the converter blames the foil. Keeping the steps connected means a property can be traced back to the step that set it, a technical question can be answered without three phone calls, and a specification can be held stable across repeat orders. That is usually worth more than a few dollars a tonne.

Tell us the application and we will confirm which alloy, temper and gauge it needs. For the individual lines see aluminum foil, aluminum foil roll and pharmaceutical aluminum foil.