 Discovery Information |
| Who:
Hans Christian Oersted
|
| When: 1825 |
| Where: Denmark |
|
| Name Origin |
| Latin: alumen (alun). |
|
| Sources |
| Most plentiful metal in earth's crust (7.5% - 8.1%), but virtually never occurs in free form, so rare that it was once considered a precious metal more valuable than gold! Obtained by electrolysis from bauxite (Al2O2). |
|
| Uses |
| Kitchen utensils, building decorations, electrical transmission (not nearly as conductive as copper, but cheaper). Alloys containing copper, magnesium, silicon, manganese and other metals are much stronger and more durable than aluminium, making aluminium useful in the manufacture of aircraft and rockets. |
|
| Notes |
| While aluminium was discovered by
Hans Christian Oersted
, Denmark, 1825 (impure form); most credit
Wohler
with isolating it in1827. Actually the ancient Greeks and Romans used alum (aluminium sulfate with potassium) in medicine and in dying. de Morveau recognized the base in alum in 1761 and proposed it be called alumine. Lavoisier thought that alum was an oxide of this undiscovered metal. In 1807
Davy
proposed the name alumium for this undiscovered metal, but it wasn't until 1827 that
Wohler
actually isolated aluminium, though an impure form was isolated by
Oersted
two years earlier. The new metal was called aluminum. Two years later it was changed to aluminium to conform with the "ium" in most other elements. American Chemical Society changed the spelling back to aluminum in 1925, which we American's still use. In England and elsewhere in the world they still spell it aluminium. So if you hear someone say "al-u-min'-i-um foil" instead of aluminum foil, you'll know where it came from. |
| It is the second most malleable metal (gold being first) and the sixth most
ductile
. |
