Insulated Bottles, Cups, and Containers
Insulated, or Double Wall containers are essentially just that; a container with two layers that is keeping drinks cold only by added material in the form of an additional wall. While containers like this are relatively effective, they start to lose their effectiveness in hot environments or after prolonged use. They also only work for cold liquids, and not hot ones. Insulated bottles, Tumblers, & cups are starting to fall out of popularity, as newer technology and advancements in vacuum sealing have made insulated bottles nearly obsolete, due to the fact that they are less effective than their counterparts and cannot insulate hot liquids such as coffee or tea.
With an insulated or double walled container, the primary (first) layer is usually stainless steel. The exterior (second) layer can be a variety of materials, usually plastic, glass, or some sort of composite material.
The two main reasons why these containers don’t work well are:
While most insulated cups have a stainless steel layer, their exterior layer and interior layer are usually made up of another material. This causes heat transfer both from heat seeping through the materials, as well as radiating from the outer materials.
No matter how many layers your container has, if there’s air trapped between them it will never insulate effectively. Heat uses other materials or molecules to transfer through, therefore it can use the air trapped between the walls of the container as well as the walls themselves to lose or gain heat.
Vacuum Sealed Bottles, Cups and Containers
Vacuum sealed and vacuum sealing has been around for some time. The basic idea of vacuum sealing is that the removal of any air present in a container will limit deterioration as well as heat transfer. At first this was done with food containers and bags. Food lasts much longer when it is void of air, and tastes fresher when you decide to cook it. For this reason food companies and retailers started utilizing vacuum sealed containers and bags for preserving their products.
When it comes to the Vacuum technology in water bottles, tumblers, and other containers, insulation not preservation is the primary goal. Vacuum containers rely on the void of air between the two layers in order to insulate. When there is a vacuum in the space, there are no molecules which the heat can transfer through. Therefore, the contents inside stay at their original temperature for a relatively long time.
Usually, higher quality brands and products are vacuum sealed. The materials and methods needed are generally more expensive, and depending on how the manufacturer wants the bottle to perform, it might take special design and production methods.
Thermal Cups
Thermal cups or thermal containers are just a general term for any cup or container that provides some sort of insulation. Technically, it is not a category by itself but needs to be mentioned because it is a commonly used phrase.
Understanding the differences between insulation vessels and their strengths and weaknesses will help you make a more educated buying decision when it comes to choosing a container, cup, or bottle that is right for your specific needs.
Starting off with our most heavy duty lid, the twist style lid we offer is considered to be the most sturdy and heavy duty of all our lids. Many of our customers who participate in extreme sports or extensive outdoor activities prefer this lid for a variety of reasons.
Stylish and basically indestructible, these are some of our most popular lids for people who are constantly moving and don’t want to have to worry about a spout or straw with their bottle. There are two versions, one with a bamboo finish and one without. The lid with the bamboo finish looks like it wouldn’t be very strong, but it’s actually just as durable as the regular stainless steel lid and the twist lid. Any and all bamboo used for this lid was sustain-ably harvested and produced.
A long running Topoko favorite and staple product, The bite valve lid was one of the first lids ever developed by Topoko, and was created based on the need for stainless steel water bottle owners to have a lid that can be used with one hand while running or moving, but also provide good insulation and be leak proof like the standard two handed lids are. This lid not only features the now famous bite valve opening, but deep threading and an internal plastic seal 30% thicker than any standard lids.
Out of all of our lids, customers love our straw lid the absolute best. When developing our version of the straw lid for standard mouth bottles, we found that the key to producing the best straw lid is all in the details. While other straw lids are designed with a simple blueprint consisting of the straw, mouthpiece, and lid, Our lid is created in a more specific way. Every aspect of the Topoko Straw Lid is designed to work consistently and perfectly, from the length of the straw to the diameter of the lid and mouthpiece. We’ve spent years perfecting this lid and with hundreds of thousands of daily users, we take pride in its performance as well as it’s popularity.
Tough, rugged, and versatile this custom lid was developed with input from our customers! Many Topoko customers and product testers are avid outdoors-men, which gives us the freedom and ability to test all of our products in rugged and unpredictable situations. The features that most of our products have are useful and easy to appreciate when you’re in your vehicle or office, but they are unavoidably appreciated when it comes to using them in extreme weather, challenging conditions, or situations in which you can’t be gentle with your bottle. Starting with probably the coolest aspect of this lid, the handle can be unbound and stretched to 12 feet.
The para cord rope is extremely strong and can hold weight in excess of 250 pounds. This allows this rope to be used in a variety of survival situations, many of which can potentially save your life. The para cord is also treated and covered with a liquid coating that prevents the rope from drying out or fraying even if it is regularly covered in mud, dirt, or water.
Attached to the para cord handle is a small but accurate compass. This compass features a shock proof casing and plastic screen that can withstand more than a few hard hits or drops. While keeping a full sized compass with you at all times when exploring in an unknown or densely wooded area is extremely important and recommended, having a backup compass on the lid of your water bottle is smart.
Nicknamed “The Tank” in the Topoko office, this wide mouth lid is one of our most popular 2.2” mouth replacement/aftermarket lids ever. This thing is literally indestructible. Originally, this lid started out as a regular open cap lid. However, while our team was researching and reading customer reviews and our product testers were using the lid everyday, we noticed something. Generally the customers who purchase wide mouth bottles with large capacities are looking to take these bottles on extended trips, into the woods, or generally something other than sitting on your desk at work (not that it doesn’t perform that job well). So we decided to take this lid to the drawing board one more time.
From a simple lid we created a heavy-duty, battle ready lid. We added a thick, strong ring around the entire circumference of the lid, which has a raised diamond shaped texture for extra grip. Between the screw on cap and the lid itself, we added a solid piece of hardened high grade BPA Free Plastic designed to give the bottle a reinforced body and a stronger foundation to attach the carrying handle to. This lid performs and performs well.
As basic as this wide mouth lid looks, it took us years to design this lid just the way we wanted. Including a carrying handle that also allows enough clearance for leaning the bottle back and drinking as much as you’d like was actually very difficult. Now however, this is fast becoming one of our best selling lids for Hydro Flask Wide Mouth bottles.
For larger bottles that feature a wide mouth lid there are often very few options for people who plan on using the bottle for hot liquids. A lid which screws on and off would be nearly unusable for coffee or tea, as the liquid will slosh around and almost always come out of bottle too fast. Lid options with a straw are not feasible as they will quickly get dirty and deteriorate due to continuous heat. Plus, who wants to drink coffee through a straw? This lid features a smaller opening than most flip lids, allowing you to drink your hot liquids (or cold liquids) without having to worry about pouring coffee all over yourself. This one small feature we added to this lid makes a large bottle like the 32 ounce Hydro Flask pictured above more versatile and easy to use.
For years Topoko has put an emphasis on the importance of having not just high quality products ,but versatile products as well. What better way is there to increase the value of a product than by designing them to be used in a multitude of ways? That’s the thought process we have when it comes to the research and development of our bottles and lids. We want these lid’s to perform exceptionally in a variety of uses across many different applications. We are devoted to constantly improving our products by testing them and collecting feedback from our customers on their experiences. If you’re looking for a replacement lid for your Hydro Flask, we have the largest selection of lid styles and types, and a customer service team standing by to answer your questions.
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A well designed Vacuum Bottle can maintain the temperature of its contents for an extended period of time, but only if it is properly constructed. In order to understand just how that works, we must first understand how heat and the transfer of heat works.
Double Wall Water Bottles use two steel walls with a vacuum between them in order to keep the contents of the bottle at the same temperature or close to the same temperature when they were first stored.
Although for many the concept of conduction brings forward thoughts of electricity and wires, conduction is also a term associated with the way heat moves through matter. Conduction ONLY occurs when two things touch. An example of conduction would be holding a piece of ice. Before long your hand becomes cold, and the ice starts to melt. This is because your hand transferred heat into the ice cube, and the ice cubes temperature rose because of it, causing it to start melting.
Well how does this apply to a stainless steel water bottle? Well, every physical object is comprised of molecules, as well as the air around us. If we are in a cold room and have a hot cup of coffee sitting on a table, the heat will constantly be transferring from the cup of coffee into the cold air and even the table beneath it. An insulated stainless steel water bottle puts a barrier between the two different temperature molecules and “seals out” the heat transfer.
The vacuum is the actual barrier, since no air molecules or any molecules are present, no heat transfer can take place, allowing the contents of the bottle to stay at the same temperature or close to it for extended periods of time.
While conduction can only occur when molecules are touching one another, convection occurs because of the movement of liquids or gases. Now hang on, I know that may sound a bit complicated! However, convection is actually the most simple method of heat transfer, and one of the more common methods that you’d encounter during day to day activities. An everyday example of convection is boiling water in a pot on the stove. As the water begins to warm, it rises. Remember, warm molecules move quicker than colder molecules, and will always want to naturally rise up. While the warm water molecules are rising, the colder water molecules are being pushed to the bottom, where the warmer water used to be. This process continues until all the water within the pot begins to boil and is the same temperature.
As pictured, the heated water rises to the top while the colder water moves to take its place near the heat source.
When it comes to a Stainless Steel Water Bottle, Heat transfer by convection is prevented two ways:
Compared to conduction and convection, radiation is the oddball out. Radiation heat transfer is heat given off by hot molecules. Sometimes, we can see radiation in the form of light, the most common example being sunlight. While most Vacuum Bottles are effective at preventing loss of heat from conduction and convection, only the more high quality ones can prevent loss of heat through radiation. This is because in order to reflect radiation waves back into the liquid, the internal wall of the water bottle must be professionally polished and buffed.
Below is an example of three grades of polished steel:
The inner wall of steel on the far right will do a much better job at reflecting radiation from hot liquids back into the liquid rather than into the bottle itself.
When it comes down to choosing a stainless steel bottle or thermos, take this into consideration:
Not every bottle or thermos is designed or manufactured the same, and many manufactures cut corners when it comes to developing and testing bottles. Search the web and reference buyer reviews before making your decision.
]]>In recent years the need for insulated water bottles has increased because of two main reasons:
1) Humanities environmental impact has increased substantially, and people are beginning to take notice of both their personal impact, as well as our overall impact. Switching over to using a stainless steel water bottle daily instead of dozens of plastic water bottles,straws, or other disposable containers reduces pollution and plastic discard drastically.
2) Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottles are much more practical to use nowadays. In the past, insulated water bottles were only used for hiking and camping, and were usually bulky and heavy; not something you would want to place on your desk at work! Now that manufactures and retailers are producing and selling practical and stylish versions of these bottles, the average everyday consumer has more motivation to buy one.
These bottles give you the luxury of doing things like filling your bottle with a hot cup of coffee in the morning and having it still be hot and ready hours later when your settled and ready to drink it at work. That same bottle can then be lightly rinsed when you get home and refilled with ice cold water for the gym, and the water will still be ice cold when you leave the gym! That practicality for use in day to day routines as well as weekend activities is why recently these bottles have become so popular, along with the continued effort by manufacturers to produce eye-catching and ergonomically pleasing bottles that everyone can use.
How Did It All Start?
The idea of a portable bottle itself was first introduced in The United States during the 1800s, and was constructed wholly from glass. As you can imagine this wasn’t the most practical of bottles, but the concept itself stuck like glue, and before long variations of the bottle became popular. The first baby bottle was one of the more notable ones, but perhaps none were more notable than Coca-Cola introducing the first soda pop bottle in 1915. As bottles started to be mass produced, the true image of a portable container took form, and that lead inevitably to more features, better material, and more practical products being developed.
The first actual concept of an insulated bottle was developed in 1896, and the first actual retail product was offered in 1915 by The American Thermos Bottle Company. At the time the concept of this bottle was entirely new, but it quickly became popular and by the 1950s and 60s the “Thermos” was a household item. From 1950-1970 over 120 million kids' lunch boxes and accompanying vacuum seal bottles were sold to the general public, and the Thermos became a mainstream product.
Some famous users included Count Zeppelin who took his in a hot air balloon, Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, who took his thermos to the arctic, Colonel Roosevelt who took his on an African expedition, and President Taft, who used a Thermos regularly. This popularity and continued use helped to fan the flames of innovation in both the construction, quality, and effectiveness of these bottles.
The Process Of Manufacturing An Insulated Bottle
That colorful, stylish bottle you see sitting on your coworkers desk or hanging from a bicyclists backpack actually has some pretty amazing technology at work under its layers. What we see as one heavy-duty container is actually a container within a container, with either foam or a vacuum between the inside wall of the outer container and the outside wall of the inner container. Generally, foam-packed containers keep cold liquids cold and vacuum-packed containers keep hot liquids hot, but the current vacuum-sealed containers on the market can usually keep liquids both hot and cold for extended periods of time.
While there are many different insulated cups and bottle brands across the entire world, the process of manufacturing a stainless steel bottle is a relatively universal process.
In order to mold the metal into the shape of a cup, the steel has to be pounded and pressed. Once the outer cup is formed, an internal liner made from either glass or steel is placed inside the cup. Although this process is usually the same across the stainless steel bottle manufacturing spectrum, the next portion is not. For the bottle to be able to insulate liquids, it needs to have, well.. Insulation! There is a wide variety of insulation used for the production of stainless steel water bottles, but the two most common methods are foam insulation and airtight vacuum insulation. With foam insulation, liquid foam is sprayed between the inner and outer cup layers to form a barrier between the internal lining and the exterior shell of the bottle.
The Original Patent For The Thermos
Generally, foam insulation was used to keep liquids hot rather than cold. The original Thermos was actually designed for hot beverages or soups. The vacuum sealed bottles operate in a different way. While foam insulation provided a barrier between the outside temperature and the internal one, the vacuum seal basically removed the medium in which heat would be transferred. In order for heat to move in or out of a container, it has to transfer through some form of matter. Whether its air or packed foam insulation, no matter what the heat will find a way in or out. What a vacuum sealed bottle does is remove all the air from between the barriers and seals it airtight, meaning that between the inner and outer wall, there is no medium for heat to be transferred through; greatly reducing the time frame in which your liquid will be affected by the elements.
Once the most important aspects of the bottle are put together, the bottle is then sealed and painted. Manufacturers use a variety of coatings and sealants, but the better quality bottles are usually sealed with silicone and coated with a non-slip powder coating.
How Does This Manufacturing Process Affect The Quality of My Stainless Steel Bottle?
Just like most retail products, stainless steel bottles are not all created equally. Depending on the material, manufacturing process, and the design, stainless steel water bottles can vary from high quality bottles that will last for a lifetime to low quality bottles that will break after a couple of weeks and/or not work effectively or as advertised.
Some characteristics of low quality stainless steel water bottles are:
Some characteristics of good quality stainless steel water bottles are:
Final Important facts to note about stainless steel water bottles:
You can purchase Topoko Double Wall Insulated Bottles directly from our website or with your Amazon account by clicking the link below.
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Across the world many people are ditching harmful plastic water bottles for Stainless Steel Water Bottles. Here are 5 reasons why reusable water bottles are the best alternatives to disposable cups and containers:
Learn more about stainless steel bottles and how they work by clicking here.
Check Out The Entire Selection Of Topoko Bottles On Our Amazon Store
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