Why aluminum was previously valued more than gold and how the opening of the Hall-Heroult devalued it

Hello dear guests and subscribers of my channel.

Today I want to talk to you about the history of the discovery of aluminum and tell you why earlier aluminum was valued much more than gold, and how an independent discovery by two scientists literally devalued metal.

So let's get started.

How aluminum was discovered

Did you know that in the 19th century, if you had any aluminum accessory, then you were just a rich man. And in those days, aluminum was worth much more than gold.

The whole point turned out to be that in its pure form the metal is simply absent in nature, although in the form of chemical compounds it contains at least 8% in the earth's crust.

Previously, double aluminum salts (also called alum) were actively used to solve a variety of problems. The presence of the trivalent metal in the salts allowed the use of alum, for example, as antiseptics of the time, in disintegrants and even in shaving lotions.

In addition, potassium alum was actively used in medicine to stop bleeding. The following historical fact is also fairly well known:

The Roman commander Archelaus, during the period of active hostilities with the Persian troops, ordered to smear his defensive wooden structures with alum.

Thanks to this trick, not a single wooden fortification was damaged by fire.

As you can see, there is still no word about pure aluminum. About him became known only in 1807 thanks to the Englishman Sir Gemfli Davy. It was he who argued that in addition to salts, alum also contains metal.

The name Aluminum was given to the mysterious metal for a reason, because in translation from Latin “Alum” is translated as “alum”.

How the first metal was obtained

The truly first real result in the production of aluminum as a metal was achieved only in 1825, when a Dane by origin Hans Christian Oersted in his personal laboratory heated anhydrous aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam and, after removing the mercury, finally got aluminum.

Although the resulting metal was heavily contaminated with impurities and there was too little of it, this was enough to confirm Davy's theoretical conclusion.

This experiment is recognized as the first in history, as a result of which it was possible to obtain pure aluminum, and Oersted named the resulting metal - "Aluminum" in honor of Humphrey Davy.

After two years of active experiments, the German F. Wöhler was able to improve the aluminum production process. Wöhler obtained aluminum in the form of granules by heating aluminum chloride with potassium.

Already by 1854, the process of obtaining aluminum was significantly simplified thanks to the efforts of the French scientist Henri Saint-Clair Deville. He used metallic sodium to displace aluminum from double sodium chloride and aluminum.

Thus, it was possible to obtain several kilograms of aluminum at once in one experiment. Already in 1856, the same scientist obtained aluminum by electrolysis of molten sodium chloride aluminum.

Initially, aluminum was perceived as a decorative material for jewelry. This is evidenced by such a historical fact as an exhibition of 12 aluminum ingots, organized in 1855 by Napoleon III personally.

There have also been attempts to use light metal as armor. But the experiments failed, and by order of Emperor Napoleon III, all the available aluminum was processed into cutlery.

Aluminum is more expensive than gold and its sharp decline

Such cutlery could be possessed only by royal persons, for the rest of the court guests were issued the usual dishes made of gold and silver.

This continued until 1886. It was in this year that a method for producing aluminum on an industrial scale using electrolysis was discovered.

This epoch-making discovery was made by two scientists at once: the Frenchman Paul-Louis-Toussaint and the American Charles Martin Hall, and absolutely independently of each other.

The method of obtaining aluminum still bears a name - the Hall-Heroult process - the process of dissolving oxide aluminum in a cryolite melt with further electrolysis due to the use of coke and graphite anode electrodes.

This is how aluminum was obtained on a gigantic scale in the 20th century.

Thus, the price of aluminum fell five times in just a day. And if in 1852 1,200 American dollars were given for one kilogram, then already at the dawn of the 20th century less than one American dollar was given for the same kilogram of metal.

The aluminum produced in this way was good in many ways except for its strength. But this problem was also solved in 1903 by the German scientist Alfred William.

In the course of experiments, he found out that if 4% copper was added to an aluminum alloy and sharply cooled to 500 degrees Celsius, and then keep the workpiece at room temperature for 5 days, then the metal becomes much harder and stronger while maintaining the original flexibility.

In industrial volumes, improved aluminum began to be obtained in 1911 in the town of Duren. In honor of this, the alloy received its name "duralumin".

This is the history of aluminum in short. If you liked the article, then rate it by likes and repost. Thanks for reading to the end.