Are Aluminum Foil And Tin Foil The Same?

Some people say that aluminum foil is tin foil, while others say it is not.

Aluminum foil is soft and easy to deform, just like paper, and it does not expand after deformation. It can be qualitative, ensuring light blocking, no light leakage, no light transmission, no pollution, and cheap.

The original tinfoil was indeed made of tin. Tinfoil is softer than aluminum foil. When wrapping food, it will first have a tin smell. At the same time, the melting point of tinfoil gradually decreases, and it cannot be heated, or the heating temperature is high, which limits its use in food packaging. Therefore, after the price of aluminum decreased, aluminum foil replaced tinfoil in daily life. So is tinfoil the same as aluminum foil?

Today, let’s discuss this issue carefully.

How Are Both Types of Foil Made

Aluminum foil: It is made of aluminum or aluminum alloy through rolling equipment. The thickness below 0.2mm is usually called aluminum foil, and the thickness above 0.2mm is called aluminum plate. The density of aluminum or aluminum foil is 2.70g/cm3. The melting point is 660℃. The boiling point is 2327℃. The appearance is silver-white light metal with ductility and malleability. It can form an oxide film in humid air to prevent metal corrosion.

Tin foil: It is made of metal tin through rolling equipment. It has excellent ductility and malleability. Therefore, it is quite easy to process it into tin foil with a thickness of less than 0.025mm, and it can even be processed by hand. The density of tin is 5.75g/cm3, the melting point is 231.89℃, and the boiling point is 2260℃. It has excellent ductility and malleability, good corrosion resistance, and low melting point. The appearance is a silvery white metal with a slight blue tin. When tin is heated to above 160℃, it turns into brittle tin. The chemical properties are relatively stable and it does not react with air at room temperature.

From this we can see that the melting point of aluminum foil is higher than that of tin foil, making it more suitable for high temperature environments such as grilling or baking.

Are Aluminum Foil And Tin Foil The Same

Initially, aluminum foil and tin foil were different. They have the same function, but tin foil is made of tin and aluminum foil is made of aluminum.

Later, it was found that the density of aluminum foil was less than half of that of tin foil, which had a price advantage. Therefore, aluminum foil quickly replaced tin foil in food packaging and cigarette foil packaging.

However, it was precisely because the replacement time was too short and the appearance of the two foil products was very similar, both silver-white, that aluminum foil was called tin foil in the folk.

Tin foil: The original tin foil was made of tin, but now it is made of metal aluminum.
Aluminum foil: Also known as “fake silver foil”, aluminum foil is made of metal aluminum.

Therefore, calling aluminum foil tinfoil is a traditional name. In fact, the material has been replaced by aluminum foil, but many people still use the traditional name tinfoil. Therefore, if you search for tinfoil on the Internet, there will still be many related results for aluminum foil.

When Did Tin Foil Become Aluminum Foil​

1. The Golden Age of Tin Foil (mid-to-late 19th century to early 20th century)

• Tin Foil can be traced back to the late 18th century, but it was not until the mid-to-late 19th century that it became popular. At that time, tin was pressed into thin sheets due to its ductility and used to package high-end goods such as chocolate and tobacco. For example, Lindt used tin foil to wrap chocolate in 1879 to prevent it from melting.
• Until the end of the 19th century, tin foil production relied on manual or semi-mechanized processes, with uneven thickness (0.05–0.1mm), and tin’s chemical properties were relatively active, easily reacting with acidic foods (such as tomatoes) to produce a metallic taste.

2. The rise of aluminum and technological progress (1886–1910)

• In 1886, American chemist Charles Hall and Frenchman Paul Héroult independently invented the electrolytic method for refining aluminum, which reduced the production cost of aluminum from 12 to 0.30 per kilogram (data in 1900), laying the foundation for the commercialization of aluminum foil.
• In 1903, Swiss engineer Dr. Lauber rolled aluminum into foil for the first time, but the process was crude and the thickness was only 0.2mm. It was only used for decoration and industrial insulation. At this time, aluminum foil did not replace tin products on a large scale because its cost was still higher than tin foil.

3. Commercialization and substitution of aluminum foil (1910–1940)

• 1910: German company Tobler pioneered the use of aluminum foil to package chocolate (such as Toblerone triangular chocolate), which was widely praised for its tastelessness and moisture-proof properties.
• 1920s: Reynolds Metals (now Reynolds Group) in the United States began mass production of aluminum foil, with a thickness of 0.02mm, for chewing gum and medicine packaging.
• 1926: Switzerland invented continuous rolling technology, which increased the efficiency of aluminum foil production by 300% and further reduced costs.

4. Complete replacement of tin foil (1940–1960)

• During World War II, aluminum was listed as a strategic material, and U.S. aluminum production soared from 330 million pounds in 1939 to 2.3 billion pounds in 1943. After the war, the surplus production capacity was turned to civilian use, and the price of aluminum foil plummeted by 50%.
• 1947: Reynolds launched “Reynolds Wrap” household aluminum foil, and quickly occupied the U.S. household market through advertising its “fresh-keeping, heat-resistant, and reusable” characteristics.
• 1950s: The fast food industry (such as McDonald’s) used aluminum foil to package hamburgers, driving B-end demand. During the same period, tin foil gradually withdrew from the food packaging field due to its high cost (tin price is 5 times that of aluminum) and performance disadvantages.
• In the 1960s, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized the thickness of aluminum foil to 0.006–0.2mm, and tin foil became a historical term due to its poor practicality.

5. Modern aluminum foil

• In 2023, the global annual production of aluminum foil will exceed 8 million tons, of which 70% will be used for food packaging (data source: International Aluminum Association).
• Typical products: Tetra Pak inner layer, capsule coffee shell, barbecue tin foil (actually aluminum foil).

How To Use Tinfoil Correctly

Looking at the tin foil, we can see that its front and back sides are different. One side is smoother, while the other side is darker. We usually call the shiny side the photosensitive side, and the dark side the matte side. When using it, the matte side is usually used to wrap food, which can effectively improve the heat conduction effect. The photosensitive side is usually exposed to the outside.

Some hot dishes are prone to oil smoke or burning when cooking. We can use tin foil to solve this problem well. It can not only avoid the production of harmful substances, but also lock the nutrients and moisture in the ingredients tightly inside.