New alloy bottle promotes water purification system

Alcoa and Exal team up to bring attention to new technology to be unveiled at G-20 Summit

-- Packaging Digest, 9/21/2009 4:01:00 PM

Alcoa a world leader in the production and management of primary aluminum, and Exal Corporation, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of specialized aluminum packaging, have joined together to help promote newly developed water purification technology set to be introduced prior to the G-20 Summit. The event will be held at the Carnegie Science Center starting at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, September 23.

With aluminum supplied by Alcoa, Exal utilized its Coil-To-Can (C2C) aluminum container technology to create a promotional bottle for Pittsburgh-based Project Eviive. During the meeting of world leaders, the non-profit group will use the aluminum bottle to help unveil a system that it believes will alleviate the world’s growing fresh water crisis. The water purification technology, developed by Epiphany Solar Water Systems, utilizes solar energy to distill unclean water in a way that is simple, inexpensive, and sustainable.

Project Eviive called on Alcoa and Exal to create an aluminum container that would not only be impactful, but would help convey its mission. Because of its lower impact on the environment and high degree of sustainability, Exal’s C2C technology was an appropriate choice for the project. C2C is an innovative hybridized technology that marries the manufacturing speed and light weighting of standard (drawn & ironed) beverage can technology with the dynamic shaping technology originally available only with heavier walled extruded aluminum containers.

Because of their lighter weight, containers made via C2C use less fossil fuel throughout the logistics chain, producing fewer transport-related carbon dioxide emissions than heavier packaging formats, says the company. Exal’s C2C process also utilizes post-consumer recycled aluminum as a raw material and finished C2C containers are infinitely recyclable. Because the C2C process incorporates high-speed production lines less energy usage per container is required, according to Exal.

SOURCE: Alcoa; Exal