Aluminium History
How Aluminium was discovered
The art of pottery making was developed in northern Iraq about 5300 B.C The
clay used for making the best pottery consisted largely of a hydrated silicate
of Aluminium. Certain other Aluminium compounds such as "alums" were
widely used by the Egyptians and Babylonians as early as 2000 B.C in vegetable
dyes, various chemical processes and for medicinal purposes. But it was generally
known as the "metal of clay" and for thousands of years could not
be separated by any known method from its link with other elements.
In historical terms Aluminium is a relatively
new metal which was isolated early in the 19th century. In 1782 the
great French chemist, Lavoisier, said it was the oxide of an unknown
metal.
This opinion was repeated by Sir Humphrey
Davy in 1808, and Sir Humphrey gave it the name "Aluminum" which
he felt sounded more scientific than "metal of clay". His
spelling is still used in North America but elsewhere in the world
the spelling "Aluminium", following the suggestion of Henri
Sainte-Clair Deville, is used.
In 1809 Davy fused iron in contact with
alumina in an electric arc to produce an iron Aluminium alloy; for
a split instant, before it joined the iron, Aluminium existed in
its free metallic state for perhaps the first time since the world
was formed.
In 1825 H.C. Oerstedt, a Dane, produced
a tiny sample of Aluminium in the laboratory by chemical means. Twenty
years later the German scientist, Frederick Wohler, produced Aluminium
lumps as big as pinheads. By 1854 Sainte-Clair Deville had made improvements
in Wohler's method and produced Aluminium globules the size of marbles.
He was encouraged by Napoleon lll to produce Aluminium commercially
and at the Paris exhibition in 1855 Aluminium bars were exhibited
next to the crown jewels.
It was not until 31 years later, however,
that an economical way of commercial production was discovered. On
February 23, 1886, a 22-year-old American, Charles Martin Hall, worked
out the basic electrolytic process still in use today. Hall had begun
his experiments while still a student at Oberlin College, Ohio. He
achieved his success, after graduation, with home-made apparatus
in the family wood shed. He separated Aluminium from the oxygen with
which it is chemically combined in nature by passing an electric
current through a solution of cryolite and alumina.
Almost simultaneously, Paul L.T. Heroult
arrived at the same process in France. However, he did not at first
recognise its importance. He worked along another line in the development
of Aluminium alloys.
In 1888 the German chemist, Karl Joseph
Bayer, was issued a German patent for an improved process for making
Bayer Aluminium oxide (alumina). The foundation of the Aluminium
age was complete. The Bayer & Hall-Heroult processes freed the
world's most plentiful and versatile structural element for the use
of man. Today, it is an everyday commodity, rather than a precious
metal.
Although deposits of aluminous red earth
have been known to occur in the Tertiary Limestone areas since the
1820's, it was not until the 1940's that their economic significance
as an ore of Aluminium was recognised.
In 1943, 2500 tonnes of ore was shipped to the USA for process investigation
and it was realised that the bauxite was suitable for processing using Bayer
technology.
Aluminium building products came on the
scene before World War II in the form of windows and doors. But the
metal really took hold on the residential construction market after
the war.
During the conflict, the Aluminium industry
grew rapidly to provide the light metal needed for military aircraft.
When the war ended, there was a large Aluminium industry and a large
demand for new housing; a perfect match.
Today Aluminium finds a wide
variety of uses because of its remarkable combination of characteristics:
it does not rust, it is lightweight and easy to handle, it reflects
heat, it is waterproof and it is available in a wide variety of finishes.
© 2007 H.Snelson Engineers - Aluminium
Extrusions Aluminium Fabricators
Nat Lane, Wharton Industrial Estate, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 3BS. UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 1606 553580 Fax: +44 (0) 1606 861084
