Manufacturing
aluminium consists, above all, of separating alumina from bauxite,
since alumina becomes aluminium when it undergoes electrolysis.
In
1831 Pierre Berthier, a French mineralologist and mine engineer
discovered samples of aluminium ore near Les Baux-de-Provence, and
named it bauxite. In 1845, Friedrich Wöhler, a German scientist,
obtained impure aluminium particles. In France, in 1854, Henri Sainte-Claire
Deville produced pure aluminium and perfected the first industrial
manufacturing process. In 1866, Paul Héroult in France and
Charles Martin Hall in the United States independently discovered
that Aluminium oxide, or alumina, dissolved in cryolite and could
be decomposed by electrolysis to obtain molten crude metal. The
Austrian chemist Karl Joseph Bayer received a patent in 1887 for
a transformation process.
Research in industrial fields began to accelerate after Napoleon
III became interested in this new metal. In 1855, pure aluminium
was presented at the World Exhibition in Paris with the name, “clay
transformed into silver.” As it was difficult to extract,
its price was close to that of gold. Displays in store windows,
jewelry stores and silversmith shops offer proof of this former
era. Later on, aluminium became a part of daily life and aluminium
was used in clocks, binoculars, and surgical instruments…
Competition
and conflict
Aluminium was an impressive strategic
metal during World War II.
In 1944, the United States surpassed Germany, the largest aluminium
manufacturer at the end of the 30s, by producing 500% more aluminium
than before the war – 800,000 tons. After the war, manufacturers
competed with one another to maintain production levels and called
on famous designers to help them promote their products and compete
with traditional materials. First it was architecture, with the
Atomium building, constructed in 1956 for the Brussels World Exposition;
then home décor, with chairs designed by Mies van der Rohe,
and, in the more recent past, leisure equipment such as tennis rackets,
bicycles… Recyclable, that’s one of the main characteristics
of aluminium that goes back to World War I trenches.
In the trenches, French soldiers picked aluminium out of shells
and transformed it into many heartrending objects, a strange craft
that inspired the following poem: “Your whiteness is reflected
in the depths of this aluminium we use to make rings” (Guillaume
Apollinaire, “Poems for Madeleine. Only for Madeleine”).
Nowadays concerns about the economy and the environment govern recycling.
The benefit of aluminium is that is can be recycled several times
without deterioration and this is done while saving energy, since
manufacturing recycled aluminium only consumes about 5% of the energy
needed to produce primary aluminium.
The
modern ideal
Modern
is the best word to define aluminium in the beginning of this century.
Alloys, including Duralumin have been emerging since 1910. During
World War I, it played a key role in aviation. After the war aluminium
became a part of daily life where it quickly became indispensable.
Aluminium objects had to be functional yet esthetic. Manufacturers
sought out talented designers such as Marcel Breuer, Jacques Le
Chevallier, René Lalique and Warren McArthur to give utilitarian
objects a sense of style. With electric appliances, aluminium became
a symbol of the avant-garde. Innovative architects also experimented
with this new material in building frameworks or in cast decorative
objects.
Crossing
borders
Aluminium adapts esthetically to all
artistic fields.
Aluminium is used as often in skyscrapers as it is it in our lamps,
teakettles, juicers, which have become “designer items.”
Designers from all schools benefited from revolutionary alloys created
for the aeronautic and aerospace industries and incorporated them
into furniture, haute couture clothes, jewelry, accessories. Without
aluminium, protective clothing for butchers and firefighters wouldn’t
exist. A film by the Centre national d’études spatiales
(French National Space Research Center) on the use of hi-technology
and aluminium in space shows just how important aluminium is to
space exploration.
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