Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact (Technical Revolutions and Their Lasting Impact) by Vaclav Smil

Author:Vaclav Smil [Smil, Vaclav]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 4.11. Illustrations of aluminum reduction process in Hall’s two U.S. patents (400,664 on the left, 400,766 on the right) granted on April 2, 1889. In both images, A is a crucible, B a furnace, and C the positive and D the negative electrode. The first patent proposed K2Al2F8 as the electrolyte; the second one, Na2Al2F8.

A new plant at New Kensington near Pittsburgh reached output of 900 kg/day by 1894, and in the same year an even larger facility was built at Niagara Falls to use the inexpensive electricity from what was at that time the world’s largest hydro station. In 1907, the Pittsburgh Reduction Co. was renamed Aluminum Company of America, and Alcoa, now a multinational corporation with operation in 39 countries, remains the metal’s largest global producer (Alcoa 2003). Canada’s first plant, the precursor of today’s large multinational Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan), was built in 1901.

Similarities between Hall’s and Héroult’s independent specifications are striking. Heéroult, who conducted his experiments on the premises of his father’s small tannery and who did not rely on batteries but on a small steam-powered Gramme dynamo to produce a more powerful current, described his invention as a “process for the production of aluminium alloys by the heating and electrolytic action of an electric current on the oxide of aluminium, Al2O3, and the metal with which the aluminium shall be alloyed” (cited in Borchers 1904:127). Like Hall, he also made a provision for external heating of the electrolytic vessel, and his aluminum furnace also had carbon lining and a carbon anode. Héroult’s technique was commercialized for the first time in 1888 by the Aluminium Industrie Aktiengesselschaft in Neuhausen in Switzerland and by the Socieétée Electromeétallurgique Francçaise (Ristori 1911). Larger works, using inexpensive hydroelectricity, were soon established in France, Scotland, Italy, and Norway.

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