The Metal That Just Keeps On Giving

'.... Two hundred years ago, no-one knew aluminium existed.....'

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Hmmm. Makes me wonder what Sir Humphrey Davis was referring to, 205 years ago, when he coined the phrase 'alumium' (which eventually became 'aluminium' and then 'aluminum'). I certainly think the metal derived from the alumina in bauxite ore is rightfully called aluminum, but perhaps I am mistaken.

I heard back then, that aluminum was held in such high regard........ even more than gold........

One other thing is........ and maybe I misunderstood it.

But, I had a Physical Metallurgy course, or maybe in was a Statistical Process Control course. that it takes more resources such as energy to recycle aluminum that it does to mine the ore...... (bauxite) and process it into aluminum.

We have to reach a stage of maximum recycling, sooner the better. We are putting back to earth 20% less material than excavating out. Power costs are reducing with new innovations like wind, solar, HT transmission etc. A look towards poor countries for recycling along with scientific research would yield good results. India has common practice to make small shopping packets out of old news paper

That should be Humphry Davy, and "alumium" is a word rather than a phrase.

--Ed. C.

You are quite right. Those are both good catches. To whom may I direct my gratitude?

"Ed. C." is short for Editor Crankshaft, a persona I sometimes use for writing group critiques and the like.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Who Discovered Aluminum?

No way is recycling Al more expensive than mining, smelting and converting Bauxite ore into Al.

Aluminium recycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Recycling scrap aluminium requires only 5% of the energy used to make new aluminium.^[1] For this reason, approximately 31% of all aluminium produced in the United States comes from recycled scrap.

And Ed C, it's still Aluminium in England.

It was in my SPC class, but my physical metallurgy professor was teaching it.....I wasn't quite sure if I had under stood that, it didn't make sense at the time either.......... It was 30 plus years ago.

I had worked with some naval architects from England. And the pronunciation was interesting........something like ....... al-low- min-née- Niue.

Yes, England and the United States, two great countries separated by a common language.

Credit W. Churchill.

It really is easy. Just say after me:

sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, strontium, barium, aluminium.

"Aloo - minium"

What about tantalium and molybdenium? Or the good old Latin standbys of stannium (tin) and plumbium (lead)?

♪ ♫ You say potaytoes and I say potartoes

♪ ♫ You say tomaytoes and I say tomartoes

Etc. etc.

♫ Let's call the whole thing off.

Trying to sing "aluminium" in Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" would just throw the whole thing off.

Haven't heard that for at least 40 years!

Got that playing now, thanks.

He totally misses Unobtainium.

It all comes down to how one defines the idea that someone knew aluminum existed. Many aluminum compounds were known and used by people for millennia. In 1760 the chemist Louis de Morveau concluded that the precipitate the German chemist, Andreas Marggraf, discovered in 1750 was an oxide of an unknown but common metal. In 1808 Humphry Davy named this unknown base metal. A few iterations of the name occurred before Hans Christian Øersted was able to fabricate this now named metal, aluminum.

So which date should be considered the discovery date?

Hmm, difficult to say. You provided reasons that each of those dates might be the discovery date.

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I also have reason to believe that each of those dates is more than 200 years ago.