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Almost every household has a roll of aluminum foil stored in the kitchen. But have you ever wondered why one side is super shiny, and the other side is kind of dull?

Foil is one of those things that we all take for granted. After all, it comes in huge rolls and is easy to use.

But isn’t it kind of weird that we live in a world where we can all access huge quantities of tearable metal at little cost?

Yes, you’re now appreciating your access to aluminum foil, of all things.

So why is one side of foil shiny but the other side dull?

After all, it’s all the same substance, so shouldn’t it have the same shininess on both sides?

The reason why aluminum is shiny on one side and dull on the other all comes down to the manufacturing process.

Technically, creating aluminum foil is called The Bayer Process. It begins with manufacturers heating up aluminum oxide until it is molten to get pure aluminum.

This pure aluminum is then placed into furnaces, with a few other elements.

The final aluminum liquid which goes into foil contains around 99.8 to 99.9% aluminum. So you don’t really need to worry about the other elements in the foil not being credited on the boxes it’s sold in!

The molten aluminum then gets poured into chilling devices. Over time, the aluminum cools into solid ingots.

After that, the ingots get heated up again and rolled between rollers. The foil that gets made from this initial rolling goes through more and more rollers until it’s as thin as it needs to be.

But for household aluminum foil, two sheets need to be placed together under the rollers to stop them from tearing.

This makes the sides of the sheets that touch the rollers have a shiny finish. But the sides that touch each other don’t get this final polish.

So there’s no major difference between the two sides of a sheet of foil.

Instead, it’s just that only one side touches a roller during its final rolling, as two sheets have to be doubled up.

This summer, when you’re at a barbecue, and the hosts start wrapping the leftovers with foil, you can wow them with this fantastic foil fact!

You’re sure to become their favorite guest with this knowledge!

And why stop there? Once your hosts or guests are enthralled with your aluminum foil knowledge, you can keep them entertained with more aluminum facts!

For instance, you can tell them that aluminum is the most abundant metal contained within the Earth’s crust. That means that there’s a good chance that you could be on top of aluminum right now!

Also, in the 1970s, many medical professionals thought that aluminum was what caused Alzheimer’s disease.

But in the 1990s, this theory was debunked. It’s likely that in the 1970s, people mistook iron’s presence in the brain for aluminum. Of course, humans need iron! And also, aluminum is actually healthy for you. Aluminum hydroxide is an antacid!

Is there anything aluminum can’t do?

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Source: National, Royal Society of Chemistry