What is a Cold Formed Aluminium Blister?

Jul. 17, 2025

Cold-formed aluminum blister (also known as alu-alu packaging) is a packaging solution specifically designed for pharmaceuticals. It utilizes a cold-forming process instead of heating, where aluminum foil is directly pressed into shape to form blisters with excellent barrier properties. This packaging efficiently blocks moisture, oxygen, and light, providing reliable protection for highly sensitive drugs throughout the entire process from production to patient use, ensuring product quality and efficacy.

As a high-end packaging material, cold-formed aluminum blister offers comprehensive value in multiple aspects.

• Product Protection Value: With its superior barrier and physical properties, cold-formed aluminum blister provides comprehensive protection for the product, extending shelf life and ensuring product stability within its expiration period.
• Brand Enhancement Value: The metallic luster and premium texture of cold-formed aluminum blister elevate the product’s grade and brand image, enhancing its market competitiveness.
• User Experience Value: Its easy-open feature and excellent physical properties offer a good user experience, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Cost-saving Value: Although the initial cost of cold-formed aluminum blister is relatively high, it helps reduce overall costs by extending shelf life, minimizing product loss, and improving packaging efficiency.
• Innovative Application Value: The flexibility and customizability of cold-formed aluminum blister enable innovative packaging solutions, meeting evolving market demands and consumer expectations.

These combined values make cold-formed aluminum blister an ideal packaging choice for high-end pharmaceuticals, food, health supplements, and electronics.

Technical Specifications of Cold-Formed Aluminum Blister

Width Specifications

Thickness Specifications

Roll Diameter Specifications

Features of Cold-Formed Aluminium Blister

Excellent Barrier Properties

The most prominent feature of cold-formed aluminum blister is its outstanding barrier properties, mainly provided by the aluminum foil layer.

• Moisture Resistance: It has extremely strong moisture barrier capabilities, nearly completely blocking moisture. Its water vapor transmission rate is typically ≤0.5g/(m²・24h), much lower than other blister materials such as regular PVC rigid film (≤2.5g/(m²・24h)).
• Oxygen Barrier: It also provides excellent oxygen barrier protection, with oxygen transmission rates ≤0.5cm³/(m²・24h・0.1MPa), effectively preventing oxidation of the medication.
• Light Protection: The aluminum foil layer completely blocks UV and visible light, providing perfect protection for light-sensitive drugs.
• Aroma Retention: Cold-formed aluminum blister offers superb aroma retention, effectively preserving the original smell of the medicine and preventing contamination by external odors.

These comprehensive barrier properties make cold-formed aluminum blister an ideal packaging solution for drugs sensitive to humidity, oxygen, and light.

Excellent Mechanical Properties

Cold-formed aluminum blister has outstanding mechanical properties that meet various requirements during pharmaceutical packaging and use.

• High Strength: It features high strength and rigidity, able to withstand certain pressure and impact without deformation or breakage.
• High Ductility: Cold-formed aluminum can be uniformly deformed without cracking when formed at low temperatures (180-220°C), achieving blister wall thicknesses of 0.1-0.3mm with thickness variation controlled within 5%. This ensures smooth forming during cold pressing without material breakage.
• High Stiffness: It maintains good stiffness, keeping the formed blister shape stable and less prone to deformation.
• Puncture Resistance: The surface support layer has certain wear and puncture resistance, adding protection to the entire package.

These mechanical properties ensure that cold-formed aluminum blister provides reliable protection during production, transportation, and usage.

Precise Forming Performance

Cold-formed aluminum blister has precise forming capabilities, meeting requirements for complex shapes and sizes.

• High-Precision Forming: It offers excellent forming accuracy, with blister inner diameter deviation as small as 0.2mm for a 5mm diameter blister, ensuring capsules fit securely without wobbling.
• Good Deep Drawability: Cold-formed aluminum blister supports deeper blister formation up to 13mm, accommodating various pharmaceutical packaging needs.
• Good Shape Retention: The formed blisters retain their shape well, thanks mainly to the rigidity and shape retention of the PVC layer, which does not shrink or rebound during cold forming and helps stabilize the blister geometry.

These precise forming properties allow cold-formed aluminum blister to accommodate various pharmaceutical packaging needs, especially for uniquely shaped or larger-sized medicines.

Excellent Processing Performance

Cold-formed aluminum blister offers excellent processing properties, facilitating ease of production and packaging operations.

• Cold Forming: It can be molded without heating by pressing the film composite into a mold, making the process more energy-efficient and reducing potential thermal effects on the medicine.
• Easy Filling: After forming, the blister shapes are stable, making drug filling operations easier.
• Easy to Open: Once sealed with PTP aluminum foil, cold-formed aluminum blisters are easy to open, ensuring user convenience.
• Good Heat Sealing: The inner PVC layer has excellent heat sealing properties, forming a firm bond with the PTP foil while remaining easy to open.

These excellent processing characteristics enable cold-formed aluminum blister to run efficiently on pharmaceutical packaging lines, improving production efficiency.

Applications of Cold-Formed Aluminum Blister in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Main Application Areas

Cold-formed aluminum blister is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, mainly for packaging various solid medications.

• Tablet Packaging: Ideal for tablets, offering excellent moisture, oxygen, and light protection to ensure tablet stability during shelf life.
• Capsule Packaging: Especially suitable for capsules due to its precise forming performance that keeps capsules secure and stable.
• Pill Packaging: Also widely used for pills, providing effective protection.
• Powder Packaging: Particularly suitable for humidity-sensitive powders, offering outstanding moisture protection.
• Suppository Packaging: Can also be used for packaging suppositories and similar products.

Additionally, cold-formed aluminum blister can be used for topical pharmaceutical packaging, offering comprehensive protection for various types of drugs.

In certain special applications, cold-formed aluminum blister demonstrates exceptional performance and can handle challenges that conventional packaging materials cannot.

• Pharmaceutical Packaging in Tropical Regions: Cold formed aluminum blister packs have excellent thermal stability and provide the best protection for moisture-sensitive drugs even under tropical conditions. They are especially suitable for drugs that need to be transported between different climates or are chemically unstable.
• Packaging for Extreme Environments: Cold formed aluminum blister packs can be used in extreme (high, low temperature, high humidity) environments, offering reliable protection for drugs stored and transported under special conditions.
• Packaging for Highly Sensitive Drugs: Cold formed aluminum foil provides an excellent multilayer configuration for highly hygroscopic or photosensitive drugs and generics that are not suitable for barrier plastic film packaging.

These special application scenarios demonstrate the advantages and flexibility of cold formed aluminum blisters in tackling complex packaging challenges.

Advantages of Cold Formed Aluminium Blister

Advantages in Ensuring Drug Quality

The quality assurance advantages of cold formed aluminum blisters lie primarily in their exceptional protective performance.

• Extended Shelf Life: The excellent barrier properties of cold formed aluminum blisters effectively extend the shelf life of drugs, ensuring stability within the expiration date. The aluminum layer, as the core of cold formed foil, offers 100% protection against moisture, oxygen, and UV rays, shielding the drug from environmental factors.
• Maintains Drug Potency: Cold formed aluminum blisters ensure the potency of drugs during their shelf life, guaranteeing therapeutic effectiveness.
• Prevents Drug Degradation: Cold formed aluminum blisters effectively prevent drugs from degrading due to moisture, oxidation, and light exposure, maintaining chemical stability.
• Independent Protection Units: Each blister is an independent protection unit. Removing part of a blister card does not affect the rest of the packaging. Even after opening the first blister, the barrier performance of the others remains unaffected.

These advantages make cold formed aluminum blisters an ideal packaging choice for high-quality pharmaceuticals, especially those sensitive to environmental factors.

Advantages in Production and Use

Cold formed aluminum blisters offer several advantages during production and use, improving manufacturing efficiency and patient convenience.

• High Production Efficiency: The cold forming process is simple and efficient, requiring no heating, thus saving energy and improving productivity.
• Good Equipment Compatibility: Cold formed aluminum blisters are compatible with cold press forming aluminum blister packaging machines and existing equipment.
• Easy to Open: When heat sealed with PTP aluminum foil, cold formed aluminum blisters are easy to open, enhancing patient convenience.
• Easy to Transport and Store: Drugs packaged with cold formed aluminum blisters have good physical stability, making them easy to transport and store, reducing losses during transportation.
• Attractive Appearance: Cold formed aluminum blisters have a luxurious silver-gray gloss, giving the product a high-end appearance and added value.

These convenience advantages make cold formed aluminum blisters outstanding throughout the production, transportation, storage, and usage processes, improving overall packaging efficiency and user experience.

Cost-Effectiveness Advantages

Although the initial cost of cold formed aluminum blisters may be higher than some traditional materials, they offer several advantages in terms of overall cost-effectiveness.

• Reduced Packaging Material Usage: The high barrier performance allows for smaller packaging sizes, reducing material consumption.
• Lower Transportation Costs: The compact size and light weight of cold formed aluminum blister packaging reduce transportation costs.
• Reduced Storage Costs: Cold formed aluminum blister-packaged drugs can be stacked more compactly, reducing storage space requirements and costs.
• Reduced Drug Loss: The excellent protective performance reduces losses during storage and transport, lowering overall costs.
• Increased Product Value: The high-end appearance of cold formed aluminum blisters adds value to the product, enhancing market competitiveness.

These cost-effectiveness advantages enable cold formed aluminum blisters to bring significant economic benefits to pharmaceutical companies in the long run.

Advantages of Cold Formed Aluminium Blister Compared to Traditional PVC Blisters

Compared with traditional PVC blisters, cold formed aluminum blisters have the following significant advantages:

• Superior Barrier Performance: Cold formed aluminum blisters far surpass PVC blisters in barrier performance, virtually blocking all water vapor, oxygen, and UV rays. PVC blisters have a water vapor transmission rate of ≤2.5g/(m²・24h), while cold formed aluminum blisters have ≤0.5g/(m²・24h), improving barrier performance by about five times.
• Independent Protection Units: Each cell of a cold formed aluminum blister is independently sealed against moisture, oxygen, and UV rays. In contrast, PVC blisters lack good barrier material between units—once one is opened, moisture can easily spread to others, causing degradation.
• Better Thermal Stability: Cold formed aluminum blisters have superior thermal stability compared to PVC, maintaining performance over a wider temperature range.
• Higher-End Appearance: Cold formed aluminum blisters have a metallic gloss, offering a more premium look than PVC blisters.
• Extended Shelf Life: Cold formed aluminum blisters significantly extend drug shelf life, reducing waste and loss.

These comparative advantages make cold formed aluminum blisters an ideal replacement for traditional PVC blisters, especially for high-end and packaging-sensitive pharmaceuticals.

Cold Formed Aluminium Blister Processing Technology

Lamination Process

The production of cold formed aluminum blisters begins with laminating different materials to form a multilayer composite with specific properties.

Dry Lamination: Cold formed aluminum blisters commonly use dry lamination to bond layers.

Cold Forming Process

Cold Forming Principle: Cold forming involves using a punch at room temperature to press a hard sheet into a forming mold, causing plastic deformation to create cavities.

Heat Sealing and Cutting Process

After cold forming, the blisters undergo heat sealing and cutting to form complete pharmaceutical packaging.

Comparison with Thermoforming

Unlike thermoforming, cold forming does not require heating; it relies purely on mechanical pressure to deform materials.

Applications of Cold Formed Aluminium Blister in Other Industries

Food and Health Supplement Industry

• Premium Food Packaging: Chocolates, nuts, gourmet teas, etc.
• Health Supplement Packaging: Vitamins, nutritional supplements, etc.
• Functional Food Packaging: Probiotics, enzymes, etc.
• Personalized Food Packaging: Custom-designed packaging for specific food types

Electronics and Semiconductor Industry

• Electronic Component Packaging: Protection against static electricity, moisture, and oxidation
• Semiconductor Chip Packaging: High barrier and anti-static protection
• Precision Instrument Packaging: Shockproof, moisture-proof, and anti-oxidation protection
• Battery Packaging: Physical and environmental protection for small electronic devices

Consumer Goods and Daily Necessities

• Cosmetic Packaging: Creams, serums, lipsticks, etc.
• Personal Care Product Packaging: Tablets, capsules, suppositories, etc.
• Small Household Items: Buttons, batteries, small tools, etc.
• Gift Packaging: Enhancing perceived value and appeal of gifts

Industrial Products and Special Fields

• Industrial Component Packaging: Protection for small industrial parts
• Special Chemical Packaging: Preventing leakage and degradation
• Medical Device Packaging: Sterile, moisture-proof, and anti-oxidation protection
• Military Product Packaging: Adaptation to harsh environmental conditions
• Anti-Counterfeit Packaging: Using aluminum layers for security marking