Trivium’s R&D team maintains its collaboration agreement with ArcelorMittal to continue working on research to make easy-open ends even easier to open for consumers around the world. The objective is none other than to achieve a new developed steel grade.
For several months, the ArcelorMittal team has been collecting data and working closely with Trivium to find a solution. “We quickly realized why Trivium needed ArcelorMittal to improve quality, but we also understood that they wanted to drastically reduce the tear strength of their EOE. To achieve both goals, we started developing a new steel grade for EOE,” details Tété Dossah, head of Packaging Technical Coordination for Northern Europe and Export at ArcelorMittal.
Now both partners continue to work to further improve the new grade and create even thinner easy-open caps that are lighter and use fewer resources. This is confirmed by Tété Dossah, Head of Packaging Technical Coordination for Northern Europe and Export at ArcelorMittal.
In this regard, Fabrice Leboucher, Trivium’s R&D project and innovation manager for EOE and components adds that “this project started when we realized that we had to adjust our processing parameters with ArcelorMittal’s steel” and reiterates that “together we tested different coils of the new steel to understand precisely how they worked in our production process. The results were very positive and have led to a significant increase in productivity. “The results of our tests confirmed that the force required to open the EOE had been reduced by 10 newtons, in line with Trivium’s objective,” notes Tété Dossah.
The new steel grade is already in use at Trivium’s can manufacturing plant in Erftstadt (Germany). “We have also used the grade at our Deventer (Netherlands) plant in a slightly different process. The qualification process is ongoing at other plants, but we are on track to increase EOE production with the new steel,” concludes Fabrice Leboucher.
