I'm happy to answer any questions. (Well, almost any.)
I always imagined an additional stepper motor to cover an area like a delta 3D printer and liked to think about the difficulty in creating the 3D software, and the need to find a solution to simulate the unwinding-into-shape through some physical model.
EDIT: unwinding GIF here: https://imgur.com/a/VP3gEiv
I created an embossing machine than would emboss aluminum foil with the scratch marks of a teaspoon. Aluminum foil tends to get a fold rather quickly, doing that for 40m was quite a challenge.
The embossing machine: https://postimg.cc/67wkVGBy
The embossing process as GIF: https://postimg.cc/3W6zSqKx
The embossed aluminum foil as GIF: https://postimg.cc/yDh5NY0D
https://mantle3d.com/how-it-works/
This is optionally followed by a pressurized furnace for sintering.
A photovoltaic cell is a solar panel, and a piece of aluminium does nothing, am I missing something here?
Hello Amazon? Billion dollar idea here. This needs more attention. You could have fully recyclable aluminum boxes instead of cardboard. Imagine your box supply chain literally being a circle.
Amazon needs stronger boxes than foil anyway. Cardboard is likely best for them.
For some definition of high? Standard foil is around 20 um thick while the oxide layer only goes about 10 nm deep.
Aluminium foil is amazing stuff. Aluminium foil adhesive tape, in particular, is incredibly useful.
Being a multi-domain kind of geek the random tapes section of my tool drawers also contains mylar tape and fashion tape (or "tit tape" as a friend calls it) but the aluminium foil tape has proved to have many useful applications.
There's no concern with using aluminum in most cases (with dry/non-acidic foods) but leaching is a real problem with acidic/salty/wet/high eat.
I've also never heard of a plastic/Alzheimer's connection, only one claimed with aluminum.
As with NaCl, it's at least possible that the salt and the pure-ish variant aren't quite the same thing.
2) glass dish
The sculptor Kim Beaton likes to champion foil as a "metal clay" for sculpting. Keep it full of air pockets and it's easy to shape. You can use hot glue to put parts together, and then cover it in other clays for fine details and coloring. She does quick demos for tour groups at Weta Workshop in New Zealand.