Engineers at Stolle and CDL have developed a beverage end design that could be the next step in canmaking history, The Canmaker Summit in Dublin heard in the first presentation to canmakers on the project.
Gus Reall, executive director of CDL, and Dennis Stammen, vice president of metal forming and machinery at Stolle, said the companies had designed a beverage can using an aluminium alloy – 3104 – for both the 202 end and tab, as well as the body.
The use of one alloy would enable easier recycling of used beverage cans because a correction in the alloying elements at the aluminium mill would be unnecessary.
Reall told a hushed gathering: “This is it. This is the one-alloy can today. That’s an 82 gauge [0.0082inch, 0.2083mm] end, folks, 3104 [the aluminium alloy used for beverage can bodies]. Same gauge as 5182, same performance, tested. This isn’t a model,” he said holding up a can. “This is the real deal.”
Revealing the details of the joint converted end technology project, Stammen said the current mix of alloys produced used beverage cans (UBCs) “that nobody wants”.
In food cans, alloys included 3105, 5019, 5042 and 5352, and in beverage cans 3104, for the body, and 5182, for the end, were part of the mix.
With the current beverage can weighing around 12.97g (made up of approximately 10.5g for the body, 2.1g for the shell and 0.27g for the tab), he said it was not straightforward to move to the more ductile 3104 because of the requirements of strength in each element of the can.
“If we want to go to 3104,” Stammen said. “We are going to have to go heavyweight.”
“We’re looking at the 200 CDL-P,” he said, adding that two lines in Europe were running the CDL-P end design, which was heavyweighted in a limited way.
He said the biggest segment of the market was the 202 diameter, but that would not be economical to heavyweight.
Stolle has produced the X3 tab, but modified it to create the X4 tab, using 3104 alloy with only a 2% increase in material.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what I have in my hand proves that it can be done. We can produce a tab and we can produce a shell that gets us to where we want to go,” he announced.
“We can have the tab strength, the buckle performance, and we can have the openability, and we can do that with a 3104 package [body] and end, and we can be sustainable, and we can be economical.”
He said it is “good for the industry and good for everybody in here”.
In addition, Stolle is working on the adoption of the technology, with blueprints for a conversion press, lining machine and shell press, designed to reduce energy and material use while increasing production.
Stammen said: “Our vision is to have one shell system operating at 16,200 ends per minute (EPM).”
The two companies, which have been partners for more than 25 years, have been a huge force for change in the industry, Reall said.
“We are laser-focused on jointly delivering the next generation of converted end technology to the market.”
In the talk about technology, innovation and growth, Reall said this project was being done “to grow the aluminium can market.
“That is the goal. If we can further elevate that technology with the package itself, we end up with pathways to growth for all of us,” he told the gathering of canmaking and allied industries.
Referencing a talk by Constellium’s Arnaud Riess on ‘Unlocking the circular future of the aluminium beverage can’, Reall said no other substrate comes near the recycled content of aluminium.
Closing the presentation, Reall said he wanted “to go a step further”, and he proposed combining this latest development in converted end technology with “commercially proven metal forming technology”, that is compression bottom reform from Toyo Seikan [Stolle’s parent company].
“How about a single alloy with a single gauge?”
He suggested an 0.0082in (0.2083mm) body starting gauge, adding that there was “commercial production to support that in Japan”.
He urged the attendees to think bigger and better, and said that in terms of meeting the 100% recycled content threshold: “We crossed that finish line we believe. Truly circular, no one’s going to debate that. Reduced container weight, I reckon 10%. A standard alloy. Standard gauge potential, save the tab – I concede that you’re not going to get the tab down to that gauge. Circling back to my can life, because I’m a can guy, it’s the best branding billboard in the world.”
He asked attendees: “Can we find a path forward to change the traditional economics?”
Reall believed it was possible to take a greater slice of market share, with an up to 150 billion can increase over the next 5-7 years. He said there was an opportunity to fuel “real growth” in the aluminium value chain.
“It’s all about the can. I believe the can is king.”
