In the extremely hot Summer days, we want to drink with a reusable water bottle without lukewarm water through whole long day, the stainless steel insulated water bottle is best option for our ice cold hydration drinking by its vacuum insulation technology.
Vacuum insulation is not a new technology that was invented by Sir James Dewar in 1892, the vacuum insulated bottle consists of two walls, placed on within the outer and joined at the neck. The gap between the two walls is partially evacuated of air, creating a near-vacuum which significantly reduces heat transfer by conduction or convection. Therefor,
We now recognize how a vacuum insulated bottle works to keep ice cold water at a long periods of time, how can buy or make a best insulated water bottle that keeps ice cold longest?
Copper shield lining technology make better insulation
Plus copper shield on the inner wall surface that would significantly enhance cold retention performance to keep ice cold 15% longer, but only increase around 3% product unit cost from your stainless steel water bottle manufacturer in China.
The copper lining layer on insulated bottle can reflect heat radiation that keeps heat energy stay longer period inside of bottle to keep ice cold water longer time than a water bottle without copper-plated layer.
You can find information that some brands claim it has tripled walls vacuum insulation, actually it means have double walls insulation plus copper lining, here’s production description of S’well bottle for reference:
TRIPLE-LAYERED INSULATION: S’well Supernova 17oz stainless steel water bottles feature triple-layered, vacuum-insulated construction, designed to keep beverages cold for up to 36 hours or hot for up to 18 with our exclusive Therma-S’well Technology. Each water bottle features unique colors, prints, patterns and textures, all while delivering superior functionality. Hand-wash only.
Double wall insulated cap/lid
Most of stainless steel bottle cap is not double walls, and no insulation design, but a double walls insulated lid does improve the whole insulation of water bottle to keep ice cold longer and hot beverage longer period.
The typical insulated cap design for stainless steel water bottle is the Flex cap of Hydro Flask water bottle, it helps hydro flask water bottle has great cold retention to keep ice cold water 24 hours up.
Smaller mouth less heat loss
There’s many video reviews on Youtube to compare which stainless steel water bottle works to keep hot longer and ice cold longer, it would cause misunderstanding when Blogger tested with different mouth size / different bottle size, here’s an example to watch:
It’s obviously that YETI water bottle is wide mouth water bottle but Hydro Flask & The coldest water bottle are standard mouth water bottle, especially there’s no lid on the bottle to test with ice cold water, that makes YETI water bottle works worst in the cold retention test.
Not a scientific question, people can easy to find out a water bottle with smaller mouth means less heat transfer to outside of the water bottle, mouth opening area it’s no vacuum insulated layer to stop heat conduction as the bottle body does, that’s why you won’t expect a tumbler can keep ice cold longer than a water bottle.
Steel cap make worse cold retention
Klean Kanteen TK pro water bottle has great design and 100% plastic free, but its insulation is not good, they only tell:
- Climate Lock double-wall vacuum insulation keeps contents hot or cold for hours
Can not find any information how many hours it can keep cold, but based on customer comments and ratting is: its insulation is not as good as other stainless steel bottle.
The reason why steel cap make worse cold retention than a plastic cap is steel material has much higher thermal conductivity than plastic material: The thermal conductivity of steel is measured at approximately 45 W/(mK), which is extremely low compared to copper and aluminum that exhibit a thermal conductivity value of 398 W/(mK) and 235 W/(mK) respectively, but it is still much higher than plastic material which is 0.1~0.22 W/(mk).
The bottle cap & gasket design
- Bottle cap threads on outer side, therefor bottle threads is inside of the bottle, it would have better cold retention.
- The seal gasket is on lower part of the bottle cap, it would have better cold retention.
These design details is easy to be ignored by a product designer, and there’s many articles and videos to tell different stories and results what is the best vacuum insulated water bottle to keep ice cold longest, you must be confused with that and don’t know which insulated water bottle is worth to buy? Here’s our answer based on the bottle design and customer reviews on amazon:
S’well bottle keeps water coldest and longest keeps water cold the longest at 48 hours by feature Therma-S’well® Technology with triple-layered, vacuum-insulated construction.
- The 9oz fits snugly inside hand-bags and lunch-bags. Keeps beverages cold for 24 hours and hot for 12.
- The 17oz emulates a standard size water bottle. Keeps beverages cold for 36 and hot for 18.
- The 25oz holds a workout amount of water, or an entire bottle of wine. Keeps beverages cold for 48 hours and hot for 24.
Of course, a good manufacturer supplier that can help to improve vacuum insulation of your water bottle during manufacturing & inspection processes, that’s always important to work with a supplier whom is professional and responsible like “Ecoway Houseware Limited” offer one stop solution for your custom insulated water bottle tumbler project from concept design, prototype sample, tooling development, trial run production, mass production, quality management, and final shipment to bring your product from “0” to market.
