Aluminium foil acts as a total barrier to light and oxygen (which cause fats to oxidise or become rancid), odours and flavours, moistness, and germs, it is used broadly in food and pharmaceutical packaging. The purpose of aluminium is to make long-life packs (aseptic processing|aseptic packaging) for drinks and dairy goods, which allows storing without refrigeration. Aluminium foil containers and trays are used to bake pies and to pack takeaway meals, ready snacks and long life pet foods.

Aluminium foil is widely sold into the consumer market, often in rolls of 500 mm (20 in) width and several metres in length.It is used for wrapping food in order to preserve it, for example, when storing leftover food in a refrigerator (where it serves the additional purpose of preventing odour exchange), when taking sandwiches on a journey, or when selling some kinds of take-away or fast food. Tex-Mex restaurants in the United States, for example, typically provide take-away burritos wrapped in aluminium foil.

Aluminium foils thicker than 25 μm (1 mil) are impermeable to oxygen and water. Foils thinner than this become slightly permeable due to minute pinholes caused by the production process.

Aluminium foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminium is rolled during the final pass. It is difficult to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, therefore, for the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. When the sheets are later separated, the inside surface is dull, and the outside surface is shiny. This difference in the finish has led to the perception that favouring a side has an effect when cooking. While many believe that the different properties keep heat out when wrapped with the shiny finish facing out, and keep heat in with the shiny finish facing inwards, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation.The reflectivity of bright aluminium foil is 88% while dull embossed foil is about 80%.

We provide a full range of precision aluminum strip for almost any application. We produce aluminum strip in a wide variety of alloys, including clad composites. Our aluminum strip can be produced in standard dimensions or custom made to your special requirements. We produce both imperial and metric units. We manufacture in compliance with the main international specifications, and tighter tolerances or custom tempers are available upon request. We offer various surface conditions, custom finishes (painting, anodizing, embossing), special processing, and multiple packaging options to meet our customer's unique requirements. The following is a summary of our capabilities.

Manufactured in compliance with the main international specifications and standards, including:  Aluminum Association, ASTM, EN, and DIN.
We can also manufacture in compliance with other international standards including:ASME, SAE, AMS, AWS, FED, MIL, QQ, ISO, BS, AFNOR, JIS and GOST.

Manufactured in compliance with the main international specifications and standards.
Tighter tolerances are available upon request.

Aluminium (or aluminum; see spelling differences) is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery white, soft, ductile metal. Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface. Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals.The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite.

Aluminium is remarkable for the metal's low density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates.

Despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically. In keeping with its pervasiveness, aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Owing to their prevalence, potential beneficial (or otherwise) biological roles of aluminium compounds are of continuing interest.

The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: "Had I been so fortunate as to have obtained more certain evidences on this subject, and to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium."

Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy: "This substance appears to contain a peculiar metal, but as yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state, though alloys of it with other metalline substances have been procured sufficiently distinct to indicate the probable nature of alumina."[69] But the same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."

The -ium suffix conformed to the precedent set in other newly discovered elements of the time: potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and strontium (all of which Davy isolated himself). Nevertheless, -um spellings for elements were not unknown at the time, as for example platinum, known to Europeans since the 16th century, molybdenum, discovered in 1778, and tantalum, discovered in 1802. The -um suffix is consistent with the universal spelling alumina for the oxide (as opposed to aluminia), as lanthana is the oxide of lanthanum, and magnesia, ceria, and thoria are the oxides of magnesium, cerium, and thorium respectively.

The aluminum spelling is used in the Webster's Dictionary of 1828. In his advertising handbill for his new electrolytic method of producing the metal in 1892, Charles Martin Hall used the -um spelling, despite his constant use of the -ium spelling in all the patents[58] he filed between 1886 and 1903. It has consequently been suggested[by whom?] that the spelling reflects an easier-to-pronounce word with one fewer syllable, or that the spelling on the flyer was a mistake.[citation needed] Hall's domination of production of the metal ensured that aluminum became the standard English spelling in North America.

The Lightweight Durability of Aluminum Sheets

In the 1970's, there was a large-scale movement for beverage companies to stop using steel cans for soda pop and beer. Their existed the need to switch to an alternative material that offered lower cost in production, thus the aluminum can was born. Once word was out that aluminum weighed less, cost less and was recyclable, beverage companies were on board very quickly and the change became permanent. Today, aluminum, especially aluminum sheeting, is used for more industrial applications than ever before.

As a low-cost material that is both tough and lightweight, aluminum sheeting has been used across many industries for a number of years. In contrast to steel, aluminum weighs less than steel. Aluminum is cheaper to manufacture, and easier to bend into a variety of shapes. It can be shipped easily (less weight=less cost), and makes many items lighter in weight (cars, airplanes, etc.). Aluminum is also stronger and weighs less than tin, making aluminum a more cost feasible product.

The sheeting is available in a variety of grades. Each grade is manufactured with specific designated usages. Certain grades contain a combination of alloys to reinforce strength and/or chemical resistance; while other grades are heat-treated structurally, in order to maintain its resistance to corrosion. Commercially pure aluminum sheeting is generally regarded as the most chemically and weather resistant, but is not as strong as aluminum alloy grades.

Aluminum sheeting also comes in different thicknesses. In the manufacturing process, pre-treated aluminum ingots are passed through heavy rolls under massive amounts of pressure. The more pressure that is applied, the thinner and longer the aluminum becomes. Aluminum ingots can pass through many series of rollers to achieve their required gage, or thickness. Aluminum sheeting of any grade or alloy can extend from 0.006 inches to 0.080 inches thick. Any gage that is thinner than a gage of 0.006 is considered to be aluminum foil; whereas anything thicker than 0.080 is considered to be a metal plate.