Aluminium

Production

   One beautiful, but probably improbable legend of the «Historia naturalis» says that once the Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC. E. - 37 год Mr. E.) Joined the jeweler with a metal, unbreakable dinner plate, made allegedly of Alumina - Al2O3. Plate was very light and shone like silver. By all indications, it must be aluminum. In this case the jeweler claimed that only he and the gods know how to get this metal from clay. Tiberius, fearing that the metal is easily accessible from the clay may devalue the gold and silver, ordered, just in case, cut off the man's head. Obviously, this legend is very questionable, since native aluminum not found in nature due to its high activity and during the Roman Empire could not have technical means that would remove the aluminum from alumina.

   Only after almost 2000 years - in 1825, Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted was a few milligrams of aluminum metal, and in 1827 Friedrich Wohler was able to distinguish grains of aluminum, which, however, the air immediately covered with the thinnest film of aluminum oxide.

   Until the end of XIX century aluminum on an industrial scale did not occur.

   Only in 1854 Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, invented the first method of industrial production of aluminum, based on the displacement of aluminum metallic sodium from sodium chloride and double-aluminum NaCl • AlCl3. In 1855, was received by the first bar of metal weighing 6-8 kg.

   Over 36 years of application, from 1855 to 1890, way Sainte-Claire Deville had received 200 tons of aluminum metal. In 1856 he received the same aluminum by electrolysis of molten sodium chloride-aluminum.

   In 1885, based on the technology proposed by the Russian scientist Nikolai Beketovym, was built factory for the production of aluminum in the German city Gmelingeme. Technology Beketova differed little from the way Devil, but it was simpler and consisted in the interaction between cryolite (Na3AlF6) and magnesium. In five years at the plant received about 58 tons of aluminum - a quarter of total world production of metal by chemical means in the period from 1854 to 1890.

   The method, invented almost simultaneously in France, Charles Hall and Paul era in the United States in 1886 and is based on the receipt of aluminum by electrolysis of alumina dissolved in molten cryolite, initiated the modern method of production of aluminum. Since then, in connection with the improvement of electrical, aluminum perfected. A significant contribution to the development of alumina production was made by Russian scientists K. Beyer, DA Penyakov, A. Kuznetsov, E. Zhukovsky, AA Yakovkin etc.

   The first aluminum plant in Russia was built in 1932, the Volkhov. Metallurgical Industry of the USSR in 1939 produced 47.7 tons of aluminum, even 2,2 tons was imported.

   World War II greatly stimulated the production of aluminum. For example, in 1939, total world production is, without regard to the Soviet Union, was 620 thousand tons, but by 1943 had grown to 1.9 million tons

   By 1956 the world produced 3.4 million tons of primary aluminum in 1965 - 5.4 million tons in 1980 - 16.1 million tons in 1990 - 18 million tonnes

   In 2007 the world produced 38 million tons of primary alyuminimya, and in 2008 - 39.7 million tons of production leaders were: China (in 2007 produced 12.60 million tonnes in 2008 - 13,50 million tons), Russia (3,96 / 4,20), Canada (3,09 / 3,10), USA (2,55 / 2,64), Australia (1,96 / 1,96), Brazil (1,66 / 1,66), India (1,22 / 1,30), Norway (1,30 / 1,10), UAE (0.89 / 0.92), Bahrain (0,87 / 0,87), South Africa (0,90 / 0,85), Iceland (0,40 / 0,79), Germany (0,55 / 0,59), Venezuela (0,61 / 0,55), Mozambique (0,56 / 055 ), Tajikistan (0,42 / 0,42).

   In Russia, the de facto monopoly on the production of aluminum is a company RUSAL, which accounts for about 13% of world aluminum market and 16% alumina.

   World reserves of bauxite are almost limitless, that is not commensurate with the dynamics of demand. Existing facilities can produce up to 44.3 million tons of primary aluminum per year. It should also be borne in mind that in the future some of the applications of aluminum can be diverted for use, for example, composite materials.