Aluminium for Sensitive Materials: The Evolution of Technical Packaging

Discover the fascinating history of Tournaire, a pioneer in technical packaging for nearly two centuries. Explore an industrial journey driven by innovation and adaptability. From the era of copper to the rise of aluminium as the material of choice for sensitive materials, Tournaire has consistently anticipated its customers' needs by developing packaging solutions that combine lightness, flexibility and durability.

With a strong focus on safety and performance, the company has revolutionised the transportation of hazardous and valuable materials. The OMNI PLUS® range embodies this commitment to excellence, offering recyclable aluminium packaging that meets the most stringent environmental standards. Be inspired by this industrial journey and discover how Tournaire continues to push the boundaries of innovation towards a more sustainable future.

As the bustling trading town of Grasse expanded its production beyond olive oil, leather and gloves to include “perfume oils” and “flower extracts”, a new trade emerged: distillers. This development led to the growth of the coppersmithing industry, whose craftsmen had to extend their expertise to the manufacture of distillation stills. It was in this context, in 1833, that Joseph Tournaire, the son and grandson of millers, established his workshop in a 40 m² space on Place de la Roque. By the end of the 19th century, the perfume industry required no fewer than six coppersmithing workshops in Grasse.

Nearly two centuries ago, Tournaire was the sixth coppersmithing workshop to open in Grasse. However, the company distinguished itself as a specialist in copper equipment during the era of major industrialisation. As the perfume industry expanded rapidly, perfume manufacturers processed increasing quantities of raw materials and sought to overcome the constraints of seasonality. Their objective was to continue processing raw materials during the harvest season while preserving them throughout the year and exporting them worldwide.

Despite its flexibility, light weight and strength, copper also has certain drawbacks: it oxidises easily, requiring regular tinning, and is relatively expensive. These limitations prompted Tournaire to explore more cost-effective and durable alternatives.

Bauxite was discovered by chemist Pierre Berthier in 1821 in Les Baux-de-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), while he was searching for iron ore on behalf of industrialists from Lyon. He named his discovery “terre d’alumine des Baux” (alumina earth from Les Baux). The name was later changed to “beauxite” by Armand Dufrénoy in 1847, before becoming “bauxite” under Henry Sainte-Claire Deville in 1861. The world's first industrial aluminium production site using bauxite was established in Salindres, in the Gard department of France, as early as 1860.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Tournaire began exploring new materials as alternatives to copper. Taking advantage of its geographical proximity to bauxite deposits, Tournaire quickly recognised the benefits of aluminium for packaging its customers' most sensitive materials.

In addition to its inherent advantages of light weight and flexibility, aluminium offers remarkable corrosion resistance and chemical neutrality, making it ideal for contact with a wide range of molecules. These properties enable the development of high-performance packaging solutions tailored to the growing demands of the perfume industry and other sensitive sectors, such as pharmaceuticals. The adoption of this material also improves manufacturing efficiency. Aluminium is easier to process and handle than copper, reducing production costs while enhancing packaging quality and reliability. This innovation strengthens the position of technical packaging manufacturers, enabling them to meet their customers' most demanding requirements.

Today, thanks to its innovations and expertise, Tournaire continues to play a pioneering role in the field of technical packaging solutions. These innovations demonstrate Tournaire's ability to anticipate its customers' needs and develop solutions that address the challenges facing modern industry.

Ductility and Flexibility

The ductility of aluminium, meaning its ability to be stretched and shaped without breaking, is a major advantage. Aluminium can be described as a "flexible metal", offering two significant benefits:

Excellent formability: Aluminium can be shaped into complex designs from a single piece of metal. This ability to create monobloc packaging means that cups and then containers can be manufactured using controlled crimping, threading and rolling processes, ensuring safe and reliable industrial production.

Shock absorption: The flexibility of aluminium allows containers to withstand impacts without tearing or puncturing. This enables them to successfully pass the drop tests required by dangerous goods regulations, which simulate real-life transport and handling conditions. This impact resistance is essential for ensuring the safety and integrity of packaged products, particularly hazardous materials.

Ultimate Barrier Properties

Aluminium's barrier properties make it a material of choice for packaging used in the healthcare, chemical, food and perfume industries. Aluminium is naturally resistant to corrosion, ensuring the protection and quality of packaged products over extended periods. In addition to protecting against light and moisture, it prevents the penetration of odours and aromas, which is essential for preserving the freshness and integrity of the most sensitive substances.

Tournaire packaging can also be coated with an internal lacquer to maximise compatibility between the container and its contents, particularly when packaging highly aggressive substances.

Recyclability

Aluminium can be recycled indefinitely without losing its mechanical properties, making it an extremely sustainable material. Recycling aluminium saves up to 95% of the energy required to produce primary aluminium. Furthermore, approximately 75% of all aluminium produced since the beginning of the 20th century is still in circulation today, demonstrating the durability and longevity of this material.

Lightweight

One of aluminium's main advantages is its light weight. This characteristic is crucial for transporting goods, as it significantly reduces transportation costs. Indeed, most of the weight being transported often comes from the product itself rather than its packaging. The lightweight nature of aluminium therefore helps reduce these costs and, consequently, lowers the carbon footprint associated with transportation.

Safety and Chemical Neutrality

Aluminium is non-toxic and chemically inert, making it suitable for packaging food and pharmaceutical products. It does not react with food products, ensuring that it does not alter the taste or smell of packaged foods. This chemical inertness is essential for ensuring food safety and maintaining product quality over time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, aluminium stands out as the material of choice for high-performance monobloc packaging. Its light weight, ductility, recyclability, barrier properties and safety make it ideal for a wide range of industrial applications. The use of aluminium not only helps reduce costs and carbon footprint but also ensures the quality and safety of packaged products. By choosing aluminium packaging, companies can meet growing demands for sustainability and performance while remaining competitive in the market.

In the future, aluminium will remain a material of choice for packaging thanks to its unique properties and its ability to meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements. Regulations play a crucial role in this transition towards more sustainable practices. In particular, France's AGEC Law (Anti-Waste Law for a Circular Economy) represents a major turning point in promoting a circular economy and reducing waste. Adopted and enacted on 10 February 2020, this legislation introduces a series of measures aimed at improving waste management, encouraging recycling, and promoting the reuse and repair of products.

The AGEC Law is structured around several key objectives aimed at transforming our current economic model:

Reducing Waste

The law introduces measures to reduce waste generation. These include limiting single-use products and encouraging more sustainable product design.

Promoting Reuse: Emphasis is placed on extending the lifespan of products through reuse practices. This means that products should be designed to be used multiple times or reconditioned for further use.

Promoting Reuse

Emphasis is placed on extending the lifespan of products through reuse practices. This means that products should be designed to be used multiple times or reconditioned for further use.

Increasing Recycling Rates

The law aims to improve recycling rates by developing more efficient recycling systems and strengthening waste sorting requirements. This involves better material separation and more effective management of recyclable waste.

These objectives are summarised by the 3 R: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Packaging solutions, particularly those developed by Tournaire, are designed to meet these requirements.

Reduce

Packaging must have a minimal environmental footprint. This means reducing packaging weight to lower transportation costs and environmental impact. Furthermore, it is essential to minimise the number of materials used in packaging. Multilayer structures, additional layers and complex assemblies should be avoided. The objective is to create simple, efficient packaging solutions that require fewer resources for manufacturing and recycling.

Reuse

Packaging must be designed for maximum reuse. This means it must be robust and able to withstand multiple use cycles without deteriorating. Material durability is essential to ensure that packaging can be reused many times before becoming waste. This approach extends the lifespan of packaging and reduces the demand for new materials.

Recycle

Packaging must be recyclable, ideally made from a single material or materials that can be easily separated.

Incorporating recycled materials into the production of new packaging is also a priority. By studying the impact of incorporating recycled aluminium, Tournaire is investing in solutions that contribute to reducing raw material extraction and preserving natural resources.

Recycling is a major challenge, but technical constraints must be overcome to maintain the mechanical performance of packaging and ensure the physical protection of its contents. Tournaire must also ensure that the chemical integrity of its customers' products is preserved. Therefore, maintaining the chemical neutrality of packaging is a key consideration in this transition.

The AGEC Law represents a significant step towards a more circular and sustainable economy in France. By focusing on waste reduction, reuse and recycling, this legislation encourages businesses and consumers to adopt more responsible practices.

Aluminium packaging, such as that produced by Tournaire, is particularly well suited to these new requirements thanks to its light weight, durability and recyclability. By adopting more sustainable business models and complying with new regulations, companies can not only reduce their environmental impact but also meet growing consumer expectations for sustainability.

The technical constraints associated with packaging hazardous materials are more stringent, which means that environmental requirements may sometimes be relaxed. It may be more appropriate to choose packaging with a less optimised carbon footprint that provides better protection against environmental contamination from hazardous substances, rather than a more environmentally friendly packaging solution that could pose a risk of releasing these substances into the environment.

Although certain requirements may be slightly more flexible, the primary objective remains to protect both the environment from hazardous materials and the materials from external environmental factors, while controlling the carbon footprint of the packaging solution. Tournaire ensures that its packaging, UN-approved for the transport of dangerous goods, meets essential safety standards while minimising its environmental impact, as demonstrated by its innovative OMNI PLUS® range.

True to its commitment to sustainability, OMNI PLUS® continues to reduce packaging weight while maintaining its strength, notably achieving a 7% reduction in the total weight of its best-selling packaging solution compared with its SYSTEM PLUS® equivalent. Aluminium, the core material of this range, enables energy-efficient processing, minimising the environmental footprint of production. Furthermore, reducing the number of components used in the packaging solution and making them easy to separate simplifies the recycling process, contributing to an effective circular economy.

The design of OMNI PLUS® aluminium containers also facilitates recycling. The separation of plastic and aluminium components helps optimise the recycling process, reducing its environmental impact. This approach ensures that each material can be processed appropriately, maximising recycling efficiency.

Furthermore, by investing in solutions that incorporate recycled materials, Tournaire demonstrates its commitment to reducing raw material extraction and preserving natural resources, while facilitating the recycling of existing materials.

Tournaire's OMNI PLUS® range represents an innovative and sustainable response to the challenges of technical packaging. By reducing packaging weight, enabling reuse and facilitating recycling, Tournaire strives not only to protect the environment but also to meet its customers' stringent safety and performance requirements. This pioneering and proactive approach positions Tournaire at the forefront of modern packaging solutions, demonstrating its unwavering commitment to excellence and sustainability.

Tournaire continues to anticipate its customers' future needs by offering solutions that combine safety, performance and environmental responsibility. The OMNI PLUS® range embodies this vision, marking a significant milestone in the history of industrial technical packaging and reinforcing Tournaire's position as a leading player in the industry.

In conclusion, Tournaire's history, from the copper era to the rise of aluminium, demonstrates the company's ability to innovate and adapt. Tournaire has successfully met the challenges of each era by adopting increasingly efficient and environmentally responsible materials and processes.

Today, with the OMNI PLUS® range, Tournaire continues to lead the way in sustainable, high-performance packaging. Thanks to its light weight, flexibility and ability to be recycled indefinitely, aluminium enables Tournaire to offer packaging solutions that not only reduce the carbon footprint but also ensure optimal protection for the most sensitive and hazardous materials.

Tournaire's commitment to innovation and sustainability is also reflected in its compliance with regulations such as the AGEC Law and its proactive approach to anticipating future regulatory requirements, including the PPWR and PFAS-related regulations. Tournaire is therefore fully committed to a circular economy approach.

The future of technical packaging lies in solutions that combine performance with environmental responsibility. With its OMNI PLUS® range, Tournaire is at the forefront of this evolution, bringing packaging for the most sensitive materials closer to carbon neutrality.

By continuously innovating and adapting to its customers' needs, Tournaire demonstrates that technical excellence and environmental responsibility can go hand in hand. This pioneering vision enables Tournaire to maintain its position as a leading provider of packaging solutions, anticipating tomorrow's challenges while meeting today's requirements.

GLOSSARY

- Aluminium: A lightweight, corrosion-resistant metal offering excellent leak-tightness and container integrity. It can be recycled indefinitely without losing its mechanical properties.

- Coppersmith: A craftsman specialising in working with copper and other metals to manufacture utensils, distillation stills and other containers.

- Estagnon: A metal container, originally made of copper, used to store and transport essential oils and other sensitive materials.

- Recyclability: The ability of a material to be processed and reused to manufacture new products, thereby reducing its carbon footprint and the consumption of natural resources.

- Barrier Properties of Packaging: The ability of a packaging material to protect its contents against light, moisture, odours and aromas, preserving the quality and freshness of packaged products.

- Food Safety: Ensuring that packaging materials do not chemically interact with food products, preserving their taste, smell and safety.

- AGEC Law (Anti-Waste Law for a Circular Economy): French legislation aimed at promoting a circular economy, reducing waste and encouraging the recycling and reuse of products.

- Circular Economy: An economic system designed to minimise waste and maximise the reuse, repair, recycling and sustainability of products and materials.

- UN Number (United Nations Number): A unique identification code assigned to hazardous substances, indicating their nature and associated risks.

- Transport of Dangerous Goods: A set of regulations and practices designed to ensure safety during the transportation of substances that may pose risks to health, safety or the environment.

- ISO Certification: Certification demonstrating that an organisation complies with international standards for quality or environmental management.

- Cleanliness (Three Levels at Tournaire):

1. Microbiological Cleanliness: Monitoring and controlling microbial contaminants to ensure sterility.

2. Chemical Cleanliness: Monitoring chemical contaminant levels to maintain exceptional chemical cleanliness.

3. Particulate Cleanliness: Monitoring particles of significant size to ensure the purity of the contents.

- Leak-Tightness: The ability of packaging to prevent leaks or exposure of its contents to external elements.

- Pressure Resistance: The ability of packaging to withstand internal or external pressure without failure.

- Compliance and Performance: At Tournaire, regulatory compliance is considered a minimum requirement. The company goes beyond compliance by focusing on performance and incorporating additional safety margins to provide customers with peace of mind. Tournaire also anticipates future, more stringent standards, helping its customers remain compliant and ahead of regulatory requirements.

- Tamper Evidence and Anti-Counterfeiting: Packaging features designed to prevent or reveal unauthorised opening, tampering or product falsification.

- Sustainability: The practice of using resources in a way that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

- Social Responsibility: A company's commitment to acting ethically and contributing to economic development while improving the quality of life of its employees and society.

- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): An evaluation of the environmental impact of a product throughout its entire life cycle, from production to disposal.

• Aluminium Recycling Factsheet

• Properties of Aluminium based on studies in metallurgy and materials engineering.

• Infinitely Recyclable

These sources provide an in-depth understanding of aluminium's properties, regulations governing the transport of dangerous goods, and the sustainable practices adopted by Tournaire to meet environmental and industrial requirements.