Eli5 why is aluminium not used as a material until relatively recently whilst others metals like gold, iron, bronze, tin are found throughout human history?
In: 7474
Fun fact: Napoleons’ silverware was made of Aluminum because, at the time, it was more valuable than gold. Not because Aluminum was particularly rare in the earth’s crust, on the contrary; it’s more abundant than iron, but because it’s so difficult to refine.
As the first post mentioned, one basically needs a giant electric arc furnace churning out massive quantities of energy to split the bauxite ore back to its constituent components. In fact, the power requirements are so high that many aluminum smelters require the construction of a entire hydroelectric dam just to run the factory.
TLDR; Aluminum is not rare but finding it in a ‘pure’ form is virtually impossible. The technology to purify it at any sort of scale didn’t exist until electricity becomes a thing people did.
Latest Answers