History of Aluminium

Aluminium is found in the earth's crust. It is mostly combined with oxygen, silicon, the alkali and alkaline-earth metals, fluorine, hydroxides, sulphate and phosphates.

Herodotus mentioned alumen (alaun) in the earth as a compound in his history note. In 1754 Merggraf recognized that oxygen should be in ton and in alumen (alaun).In 1786 De Morveau called it 'alumina'. In 1807 Davy is tried to isolate the metal from damp ton in electrolytic process. He did not succeed but he called it "aluminium".

In 1825, for the first time, Oersted extracted metal from Aluminium chloride via potassium amalgam through thermochemical method. In 1845 Woehler used the idea of Oersted and produced AlCl3 from chlorination of Al2O3 by Cl2 gas and C. Then he extracted Aluminium from AlCl3 using potassium (K).later he could produce Aluminium in globule form.

Base on this knowledge in 1945 – 1950 the first Aluminium factory in Saint –Claire Deville in France was built. Science 1883 it has produced 1.5 ton Aluminium per year. Of course this method was not economical for mass productions.

In 1886 the Aluminium production via electrolyse method was introduced by Hall and Heroult. This method has been around over hundred year and it is not replaced with another method, but lots of improvements have been made . One year later in 1887 the production of pure Al2O3 was found by Bayer and used in the Aluminium production . This method is not replaced with another method until now too.