History of aluminium

Discovery of this metal was announced in 1825 by Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, whose work was extended by German chemist Friedrich Wöhler.

If you will give orders to engage workmen, build furnaces, and smelt the ore, you will provide all Europe with alum and the Turk will lose all his profits.

Roman writer Petronius mentioned in his novel Satyricon that an unusual glass had been presented to the emperor: after it was thrown on the pavement, it did not break but only deformed.

[14] German chemist Georg Ernst Stahl stated that the unknown base of alum was akin to lime or chalk in 1702; this mistaken view was shared by many scientists for half a century.

[19] German chemist Johann Heinrich Pott showed the precipitate obtained from pouring an alkali into a solution of alum was different from lime and chalk in 1746.

[20] German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf synthesized the earth of alum by boiling clay in sulfuric acid and adding potash in 1754.

[22] Writing in 1782, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier considered alumina an oxide of a metal with an affinity for oxygen so strong that no known reducing agents could overcome it.

[25] This amalgam quickly separates in air, and by distillation, in an inert atmosphere, gives a lump of metal which in color and luster somewhat resembles tin.

[13] Austrian chemists Anton Leopold Ruprecht and Matteo Tondi repeated Baron's experiments in 1790, significantly increasing the temperatures.

"[27] Lavoisier in 1794[28] and French chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau in 1795 melted alumina to a white enamel in a charcoal fire fed by pure oxygen but found no metal.

[31] American chemist Benjamin Silliman repeated Hare's experiment in 1813 and obtained small granules of the sought-after metal, which almost immediately burned.

[46] French chemist Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville announced an industrial method of aluminium production in 1854 at the Paris Academy of Sciences.

[50] Napoleon's interest in aluminium lay in its potential military use: he wished weapons, helmets, armor, and other equipment for the French army could be made of the new light, shiny metal.

[50] While the metal was still not displayed to the public, Napoleon is reputed to have held a banquet where the most honored guests were given aluminium utensils while others made do with gold.

Newspapers wrote, "The Parisian expo put an end to the fairy tale of the silver from clay", saying that much of what had been said about the metal was exaggerated if not untrue and that the amount of the presented metal—about a kilogram—contrasted with what had been expected and was "not a lot for a discovery that was said to turn the world upside down".

[54] At the next fair in Paris in 1867, visitors were presented with aluminium wire and foil as well a new alloy—aluminium bronze, notable for its low cost of production, high resistance to corrosion, and desirable mechanical properties.

In 1858, Deville was introduced to bauxite and, in collaboration with Louis Le Châtelier, soon developed what became known as the Deville–Pechiney process, employing the mineral as a source for alumina production.

The invention of the three-phase current by Russian engineer Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky in 1889 made transmission of this electricity over long distances achievable.

Deville quickly realized electrolytic production was impractical at the time and moved on to chemical methods, presenting results later that year.

Bradley then sold his patent claim to brothers Alfred and Eugene Cowles, who used it at a smelter in Lockport and later in Stoke-upon-Trent but the method was modified to yield alloys rather than pure aluminium.

Electrolysis of pure alumina is impractical, given its very high melting point; both Héroult and Hall realized it could be greatly lowered by the presence of molten cryolite.

Bayer sintered bauxite with alkali and leached it with water; after stirring the solution and introducing a seeding agent to it, he found a precipitate of pure aluminium hydroxide, which decomposed to alumina on heating.

In 1892, while working at a chemical plant in Yelabuga, he discovered the aluminium contents of bauxite dissolved in the alkaline leftover from isolation of alumina solids; this was crucial for the industrial employment of this method.

[99] Give us aluminum in the right quantity, and we will be able to fight for another four years.Prices for aluminium declined, and by the early 1890s, the metal had become widely used in jewelry, eyeglass frames, optical instruments, and many everyday items.

For instance, aluminium bronze is applied to make flexible bands, sheets, and wire, and is widely employed in the shipbuilding and aviation industries.

[105] The war created a greater demand for aluminium, which the growing primary production was unable to fully satisfy, and recycling grew intensely as well.

[107] By 1955, the world market[m] had been dominated by the Six Majors: Alcoa, Alcan (originated as a part of Alcoa), Reynolds, Kaiser, Pechiney (merger of Compagnie d'Alais et de la Camargue that bought Deville's smelter and Société électrométallurgique française that hired Héroult), and Alusuisse (successor of Héroult's Aluminium Industrie Aktien Gesellschaft); their combined share of the market equaled 86%.

[130] From 1945, aluminium consumption grew by almost 10% each year for nearly three decades, gaining ground in building applications, electric cables, basic foils and the aircraft industry.

[105] The main drivers of the drop in price was the decline of extraction and processing costs, technological progress, and the increase in aluminium production,[132] which first exceeded 10,000,000 metric tons in 1971.

[139] Production costs in the 1980s and 1990s declined because of advances in technology, lower energy and alumina prices, and high exchange rates of the United States dollar.