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A drink can (or beverage can) is a metal container with a polymer interior designed to hold a fixed portion of liquid such as carbonated soft drinks, , , , , , etc. Drink cans exteriors are made of aluminum (75% of worldwide production) or tin-plated steel (25% worldwide production) and the interiors coated with an epoxy resin or polymer. Worldwide production for all drink cans is approximately 370 billion cans per year.
In 1935, the Felinfoel Brewery at Felinfoel in Wales was the first brewery outside the US to commercially can beer. Prior to this time, beer had been available only in barrels or in glass bottles. From this time, lightweight tin cans could be used. Felinfoel was a major supplier to British armed forces abroad in the Second World War. Cans saved a great deal of space and weight for wartime exports compared to glass bottles and did not have to be returned for refilling. These early cans did not have a pull tab, being equipped instead with a crown cork (beer bottle top). From the 18th century until the early 20th century Wales dominated world tinplate production, peaking in the early 1890s when 80% of the world's tinplate was produced in south Wales.
Canned drinks were factory-sealed and required a special opener tool in order to consume the contents. Cans were typically formed as cylinders, having a flat top and bottom. They required a can piercer, colloquially known as a "church key", that latched onto the top rim for leverage; lifting the handle would force the sharp tip through the top of the can, cutting a triangular hole. A smaller second hole was usually punched at the opposite side of the top to admit air while pouring, allowing the liquid to flow freely.
In the mid-1930s, some cans were developed with caps so that they could be opened and poured more like a bottle. These were called "", as their tops had a conical taper up to the smaller diameter of the cap. Cone top cans were sealed by the same crimped caps that were put on bottles, and could be opened with the same bottle-opener tool. There were three types of conetops: high profile, low profile, and j-spout. The low profile and j-spout were the earliest, dating from about 1935. The "crowntainer" was a different type of can that was drawn steel with a bottom cap. These were developed by Crown Cork & Seal (now known as Crown Holdings), a leading drink packaging and drink can producer. The popularity of canned drinks was slow to catch on, as the metallic taste was difficult to overcome with the interior liner not perfected, especially with more acidic sodas. Cans had two advantages over glass bottles. First for the distributors, flat-top cans were more compact for transportation and storage and weighed less than bottles. Second for consumers, they did not require the deposit typically paid for bottles, as they were discarded after use. Glass-bottle deposits were reimbursed when consumers took the empties back to the store.
In 1959, the recyclable aluminum can was introduced to the market in a 7 oz. size by the Adolph Coors Company.
In 2008, an aluminum version of the crowntainer design was adopted for packaging Coca-Cola's Caribou Coffee drink.
| +Comparison chart of various standards | ||
| 568 | 20.0one imperial pint | 19.2 |
| 473 | 16.6 | 16.0one US pint |
| 237 | 8.3 | 8.0half a US pint |
The standard size of drink cans in each country significantly varies, and various standard capacities are used internationally.
Can dimensions may be cited in metric or imperial units; imperial dimensions for can making are written as inches+sixteenths of an inch (e.g. "202" = 2 inches + 2 sixteenths).
In Quebec, a new standard for carbonated drinks has been added, as some grocery stores now only sell cans of all major carbonated drinks in six-packs of 222 ml cans. Many convenience stores also began selling "slim cans" with a 310 ml capacity in 2015.
In 2001, the Australian Aluminium Council reported that the average Australian-size can weighed approximately . Improved manufacturing techniques had allowed Australian manufacturers to reduce metal requirements from the 1992 average of . In 2011, an empty U.S.-size can weighed approximately , with approximately 34 per pound or 70 per kilogram.
In many parts of the world a deposit can be recovered by turning in empty plastic, glass, and aluminum containers. Scrap metal dealers often purchase aluminum cans in bulk, even when deposits are not offered. Aluminum is one of the most cost-effective materials to recycle. When recycled without other metals being mixed in, the can–lid combination is perfect for producing new stock for the main part of the can—the loss of magnesium during melting is made up for by the high magnesium content of the lid. Also, reducing ores such as bauxite into aluminum requires large amounts of electricity, making recycling cheaper than producing new metal.
Aluminum cans are coated internally to protect the aluminum from oxidizing. Despite this coating, trace amounts of aluminum can be degraded into the liquid, the amount depending on factors such as storage temperature and liquid composition. Chemical compounds used in the internal coating of the can include types of epoxy resin.
Plain lids (known as shells) are stamped from a coil of aluminum, typically alloy 5182-H48, and transferred to another Machine press that converts them to easy-open ends. This press is known as a conversion press which forms an integral rivet button in the lid and scores the opening, while concurrently forming the tabs in another die from a separate strip of aluminum.
Can filling lines come in different line speeds from 15,000 cans per hour (cph) up to 120,000 cph or more, all with different levels of automation. For example, lid feeding alone starts with manual debagging onto a simple v-chute connected to the seamer up to fully automated processes with automatic debagging and lid feeding of lids combined with automatic roll depalletizers for filling debaggers by robots.
As early as 1922, inventors were applying for patents on cans with tab tops, but the technology of the time made these inventions impractical. Later advancements saw the ends of the can made out of aluminum instead of steel.
In 1959, Ermal Fraze devised a can-opening method that would come to dominate the canned drink market. His invention was the "pull-tab". This eliminated the need for a separate opener tool by attaching an aluminum pull-ring lever with a rivet to a pre-scored wedge-shaped tab section of the can top. The ring was riveted to the center of the top, which created an elongated opening large enough that one hole simultaneously served to let the drink flow out while air flowed in. Previously, while on a family picnic, Mr. Fraze had forgotten to bring a can opener and was forced to use a car bumper to open a can of beer. Thinking there must be an easier way, he stayed up all night until he came up with the pull tab. Pull-tab cans, or the discarded tabs from them, were colloquially called "pop-tops".
Into the 1970s the pull-tab was widely popular, but its popularity came with the problem of people frequently simply discarding the pull-tabs on the ground, creating a potential injury risk especially to the feet or fingers. In the 1960s, at least one inventor attempted to solve the litter problem, by having the tab be retained by a stationary key that would wrap the tab around itself, which was unsuccessful commercially. Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office 1968, p. 1050.
The problem of the discarded tops was initially solved by the invention of the push-tab. Used primarily on Coors Beer cans in the mid-1970s, the push-tab was a raised circular scored area used in place of the pull-tab. It needed no ring to pull up; instead, the raised aluminum blister was pushed down into the can using one finger. A small unscored section of the tab prevented it from detaching and falling into the can after being pushed in. Push-tabs never gained wide popularity because while they had solved the litter problem of the pull-tab, they created a safety hazard where the person's finger upon pushing the tab into the can was immediately exposed to the sharp edges of the opening. A feature of the push-tab Coors Beer cans was that they had a second, smaller, push-tab at the top as an airflow vent. "Push-tabs" were introduced into Australia from around 1977 and were locally known as "pop-tops", before being replaced later by the Stay-on-tab. The safety and litter problems were eventually solved later in the 1970s with Daniel F. Cudzik's invention of the non-removing "Stay-Tab".
Cans are usually in sealed paperboard cartons, corrugated fiberboard boxes, or trays covered with plastic film. The entire distribution system and packaging need to be controlled to ensure freshness.
The early pull-tabs detached easily. In 1976, the Journal of the American Medical Association noted cases of children ingesting pull-tabs that had broken off and dropped into the can.
Full-top pull-tabs were also used in some and are currently used in some soup can, pet food, tennis ball, nuts, and other cans.
The similarly designed "Easy-open ecology end" was invented by Ermal Fraze and Omar Brown. Its patent application was also filed in 1975, less than two months after the expiration of Bajada's patent. This design, like Cudzik's, uses a separate tab attached to the upper surface as a lever to depress a scored part of the lid, which folds underneath the top of the can and out of the way of the resulting opening, thus reducing injuries and roadside litter caused by removable tabs.
Such "retained ring-pull" cans supplanted pull-off tabs in the United Kingdom in 1989 for soft drinks and 1990 for .
The stay-on-tab (SOT) opening system solved the environmental issue of the previous pull-tab design. However, it introduced a new, still unresolved hygiene concern: the outer panel of the tab now sinks into the liquid inside the can.
One of the more recent modifications to can design was the introduction of the "wide mouth" can in the late 1990s. The American Can Company, now a part of Rexam, and Coors Brewing Company have owned wide mouth design patent (number D385,192) since 1997. Other companies have similar designs for the wide mouth. Ball Corporation's from 2008 has a vent tube to allow direct airflow into the can reducing the number of gulps during the pour. paywalled page
Current SOT opening systems have a great deal of embedded design and engineering for them to open consistently and to avoid injury. In addition to the scored part of the lid, there is an indentation in the lid over one of the scored lines which points to the other scored line. This indentation localizes the applied stress from lifting the tab and acts as a stress shield to apply a critical amount of localized stress to fracture the aluminum along the scored line. The crack that is initiated grows in two directions: back toward the tab and around a crack arresting feature, and then around the perimeter of the opening to the other end of the scored line where the crack stops--the metal between the crack arresting shape and the end of the crack acts as a plastic hinge to allow the tab to push the opening of the can away from where the liquid is consumed.
Press button cans were used by Pepsi in Canada from the 1970s to 1980s and Coors in the 1970s. They have since been replaced with pull tabs. Used in Australia, locally known as "pop-tops", for soft drinks from 1977 to the early 1980s. However, Heineken Brewery did bring back press- or push button cans on the market in Europe as a short-lived marketing strategy in the 1990s.
Aluminum cans also contain a polymeric coating on the liquid-contacting surface to preserve the taste of the beverage, and because aluminum is susceptible to corrosion via acidic attack.
As of late 2009, membership in the Brewery Collectibles Club of America was 3,570, down from a peak of 11,954 in 1978. Just 19 of the members were under the age of 30, and the members' average age had increased to 59.
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