Production of foil from lead and tin alloys in the conditions of SUSU and RPA “R.O.S.Anticor“ LLC

Lead, tin and lead foil clad with tin are used in various branches of technology, medicine and the food industry. According to GOST 18394-2016, the thickness of the foil is in the range of 0.015-0.21 mm, and the width of the foil is 70-450 mm. The technology for manufacturing foil based on lead, tin and their alloys was developed quite a long time ago, in the 20s-30s of the last century. In the USSR and abroad in those years, due to the specific physical and mechanical properties of the rolled metals, cold rolling was used, implementing the roll and card rolling methods. The use of the roll or card rolling method at that time was determined, first of all, by the availability of appropriate equipment. Foil rolling was carried out on both reversible and non-reversible twin-roll rolling mills with work roll diameters of 230-700 mm. An analysis of the state of the technology and the equipment used for rolling foil made of lead, tin and lead foil clad with tin currently differs little from the technologies used in the USSR. In our opinion, this is explained by the small-tonnage orders, low yield (60-70 % of a strip billet 0.9 mm thick), low profitability and the disinterest of manufacturers in improving the technology. According to available information, the lead time for orders at some enterprises reaches up to 6 months. These shortcomings in meeting the demand for small-tonnage batches were noted in the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 4260-R dated December 28, 2022. This paper presents the experience of manufacturing small-scale batches based on lead and tin in the conditions of RPA “R.O.S.Antiсor” LLC and SUSU. The research work carried out to develop the technology and test it for the conditions of the mentioned organizations made it possible to develop technological regulations for the production of foil and technical specifications for lead, tin and lead foil clad with tin.