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| A bit of history... |
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Despite the fact
that nowadays it is the 2nd important metal among the most used ones, aluminium
has almost a short history, as it was discovered by a Danish man called
Hans Christian Örsted in 1827. It was mainly the result of the fact
that aluminium is not naturally pure found in nature, that is why it must
be extracted from bauxite through chemical processes that were not known
at that time.
Because of the difficulty to produce it on
a large scale, in the early times, it was considered as a priceless metal
to such an extend that Napoleon III used to give a royal welcome to his
most important guest with aluminium cutlery instead of gold one.
The method to obtain prime aluminium from
alumina (pure aluminium oxide) on an industrial scale was just discovered
by two investigators in 1886. They were Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult (Normandy-France)
and Charles Martin Hall (Ohio-United States). Both reached the same result
without meeting each other and what it is really singular is that both of
them were born and died in the same year. |
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