The History of Aluminium
Aluminium is never found in its metallic form in nature. It occurs as bauxite, a mixture of aluminium oxides, iron oxides and clay.
Being so difficult to isolate, aluminium wasn't discovered until 1807, by a Sir Humphry Davy (who also discovered potassium and sodium and invented the miner's safety lamp). It was not until 1825 that aluminium was isolated as a metal by Danish physicist Hans Christian Orsted. It was a further 60 years before a commercial production method was developed. In 1886 the electrolytic process that splits oxygen from alumina, allowing the molten metal to be poured off, was discovered simultaneously by Paul Heroult in France and by Charles Martin Hall in the USA.
Aluminium is the second most widely used metal in the world today. It is used extensively in aircraft, in buiding construction, and in consumer durables such as fridges cooking utensils and air conditioners as well as in food processing equipment. Before the middle of the 19th century though, the cost of aluminium production was so high that the metal was considered to be 'semi precious'. Louis Napoleon, Emperor of France, even had a ceremonial helmet and dinner service made of aluminium. The first major commercial use of aluminium was cookware.
Innovative steps in the beverage Industry
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1809 |
first tin can for food produced |
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1935 |
first three-piece steel beverage can for beer in the USA |
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1958 |
first two-piece extruded aluminium beverage can for beer in the USA |
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1961 |
first aluminium easy open end (ring pull) beverage can produced |
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1963 |
first two-piece drawn aluminium beverage can produced in the USA |
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1966 |
first two-piece DWI (drawn and ironed) aluminium beverage can produced |
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1971 |
first two-piece tinplate beverage can |
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1977 |
first PET bottle |
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1987 |
first narrow ended aluminium beverage can produced |
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1989 |
first stay-on tab for the aluminium beverage can |
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1991 |
first fluted aluminium beverage can |
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1997 |
first shaped/contour aluminium beverage can |
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1998 |
first aluminium drawn bottle (Alcoa World Alumina) |
The 2 piece can
Aluminium and the environment
The Australian aluminium industry has long been at the forefront of world environmental excellence in all aspects of its operations - from rehabilitation of its bauxite mines to emission control at the smelters. Since the industry started in Australia, recycling has been recognised as a way of saving energy and reducing pollution. Australian aluminium producers were among the first to recognise the secondary use of aluminium during the 1940s, and by the 1970s had established an extensive network of aluminium scrap collection points around the country. Recycling aluminium represents a 95% saving of energy needed to produce aluminium from bauxite.
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