Aluminum foil is widely used in automobile manufacturing, textile, electronic industry, electromechanical industry, aerospace industry, packaging industry, construction industry, shipbuilding industry, etc. It is an important industrial raw material.
consumption
At present, China can consume 161,300 tons of aluminum foil per year. The largest consumer of aluminum foil in China is air-conditioning foil; followed by cigarette foil, China is the world’s largest cigarette producer and consumer. Cigarette packaging annually consumes 35,000 tons of tobacco foil, accounting for 60 percent of the total consumption of double-null foil. The third is decorative foil, used in the construction industry for heat insulation, moisture protection and decorative materials. At present, Chinese architectural and home appliance industries have formed the application wave of decorative foil; Fourth, cable foil, the use of aluminum foil sealing and shielding, used as The shield of the cable. The consumption of aluminum foil of the above four varieties accounted for more than 70% of the total consumption of aluminum foil in China. Pharmaceutical foils, electronic foils, automotive foils, and flexible packaging foils are currently consumed in China, but their market growth is good and they have become an important growth point for consumers in the aluminum foil market.
In addition to cigarette packaging, aluminum foil applications in the packaging industry include: aluminum plastic composite bags, pharmaceutical aluminum foil blister packaging and chocolate packaging. Some high-end beer also wrap aluminum foil on the bottle.
Medicinal blister packs include medicinal aluminum foils, PVC plastic hard sheets, and heat-sealing coatings. Medicinal aluminum foil is a sealing material that is sealed on a plastic hard sheet, and has the advantages of non-toxicity, corrosion resistance, impermeability, heat resistance, moisture resistance, light blocking, high temperature sterilization, and the like. The thickness of medicinal aluminum foil is generally 0.02 mm. It consists of a protective layer, an ink printing layer, a substrate, and an adhesive layer. Because of the high cost, the aluminum blister is mainly used for packaging some expensive medicines.
In addition to producing soft cans, aluminum-plastic composite bags have a wide range of uses in small foods, fried foods, and the like. In addition, aluminum-plastic composite bags can be packaged in pharmaceutical tablets or powdered Chinese medicine. Due to its excellent barrier properties, aluminum-plastic composites are also used in large quantities for ordnance and military supplies packaging.
However, aluminum foil is also facing competition from other materials. In the area of ​​food packaging, the main competition is from high-barrier composite plastic films such as nylon, EVOH, and PEN. The latter is transparent and makes the packaging more attractive; whereas the pharmaceutical aluminum foil is competitive with hard PVC films coated with PVDC, the latter having advantages in terms of cost. Of course, the biggest competition comes from the development of aluminum plating technology. As vacuum aluminum plating products can be based on a variety of materials such as paper or plastic, the application range is wide and the cost is low. Therefore, the application of aluminum foil in many middle and low-end market is limited. Such as vacuum aluminum coated paper with a metallic luster and easy to print, to meet the beauty and fashion requirements of cosmetics; Second, vacuum aluminum paper is easy to laser holography, has a good anti-counterfeiting effect, according to the needs of different cosmetics on the packaging Add sparkle laser logos or specific pretty patterns. Therefore, vacuum aluminum-plating packaging materials have gradually replaced aluminum foil composite paper as the main aluminum paper substrate in many occasions.
produce
At present, there are 83 aluminum foil manufacturers in China with an annual production capacity of 235,000 tons. Some companies have modern production equipment, such as North China Aluminum, which has seven 1600mm irreversible aluminum foil mills and their associated finishing trains, and is equipped with the most advanced plate type and thickness automatic control system in the world today. High-quality aluminum foil 35,000 tons. However, there are only 26 modern aluminum foil manufacturers in China, which is less than one-third of the total number of manufacturers. Most aluminum foil manufacturers have a small scale, and there is still a big gap between the equipment level and the developed countries. The overall level of aluminum foil rolling mills was at the level of the 1990s, and there were more than 200 backward two-roll aluminum foil mills.
Due to backward equipment, not only the aluminum foil end-product yield is about 10% lower than the international advanced level, but also there are many middle and low-grade products, and there are few high-precision products. The supply exceeds demand and depends on imports. For example, the use of double zero foil in China reached 600,000 tons in 2002. Produce 45,000 tons, and 15,000 tons rely on imports. Therefore, in view of the development prospects of the aluminum foil market in China, there is ample room for development both in terms of consumption and product quality.