Light gauge aluminum products help customers worldwide bring new material properties or more efficient solutions to their markets. Whether for reducing the materials used in packaging, creating new innovative packages, helping to optimize the design and efficiency of heat exchangers in air conditioners, radiators and refrigerators or protecting the flawless functioning of technical systems in data communication, piping and transportation, light gauge and converted foil aluminum products are driven by innovation and exceeding customer expectations.
Many of the essential benefits of light gauge, like its barrier, food-contact or dead-fold properties, are often taken for granted by consumers; our new converted products even contribute to improved heat protection in a car's engine compartment or shield vehicle pasengers from noise. More visibly, Novelis aluminum foil innovations also carry the premium aesthetics or luxury touch in high-end furniture or consumer goods. New demands for innovative light gauge products or customized packaging, as well as for technical solutions to design and material challenges, drive our Novelis teams continuously.
Our focal points for innovation in light gauge and converted products include:
- Creating functional, decorative or unique surfaces for aluminum products
- Development of highly formable alloys for lighter, innovative shapes
- Recyclability of consumer products
- Providing corrosion-resistant surfaces
- Development of green packaging solutions
- Improving production, e.g. runnability, for our customers‘ processes
To be innovative requires not only knowing our customers‘ needs, but also an extensive suite of technical and analytical capabilities and highly trained and experienced researchers. We use state-of-the-art techniques such as optical scanning and transmission electron microscopes to characterize the microstructure of light gauge products. X-ray diffraction is used to analyze the texture of the aluminum surface.
We employ various techniques, from simple immersion tests to the more complex electrochemical noise measurement and polarisation curves, to predict the behavior of our alloys and polymer-coated foils when they come into contact with different foods or different environments. We also use our analytical capabilities to improve the corrosion resistance of products, either through the development of aluminum alloy packages or through surface treatment techniques.
Our expertise in surface treatment technologies helps Novelis solve technical issues and develop new products for our customers. Optimizing the degreasing of the aluminum surface after production, development of hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, modifying the adhesive properties of product surfaces to enable the use of more environmentally friendly coatings and helping our customers understand the complex interactions between aluminum, adhesives and polymers are just a few examples of our current research activities.