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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History of aluminium | 6/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aluminium | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:15:10.045847+00:00 | kb-cron |
Prices for aluminium declined, and by the early 1890s, the metal had become widely used in jewelry, eyeglass frames, optical instruments, and many everyday items. Aluminium cookware began to be produced in the late 19th century and gradually supplanted copper and cast iron cookware in the first decades of the 20th century. Aluminium foil was popularized at that time. Aluminium is soft and light, but it was soon discovered that alloying it with other metals could increase its hardness while preserving its low density. Aluminium alloys found many uses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, aluminium bronze is applied to make flexible bands, sheets, and wire, and is widely employed in the shipbuilding and aviation industries. Aviation used a new aluminium alloy, duralumin, invented in 1903. Aluminium recycling began in the early 1900s and has been used extensively since as aluminium is not impaired by recycling and thus can be recycled repeatedly. At this point, only the metal that had not been used by end-consumers was recycled. During World War I, major governments demanded large shipments of aluminium for light strong airframes. They often subsidized factories and the necessary electrical supply systems. Overall production of aluminium peaked during the war: world production of aluminium in 1900 was 6,800 metric tons; in 1916, annual production exceeded 100,000 metric tons. The war created a greater demand for aluminium, which the growing primary production was unable to fully satisfy, and recycling grew intensely as well. The peak in production was followed by a decline, then a swift growth.
During the first half of the 20th century, the real price for aluminium fell continuously from $14,000 per metric ton in 1900 to $2,340 in 1948 (in 1998 United States dollars). There were some exceptions such as the sharp price rise during World War I. Aluminium was plentiful, and in 1919 Germany began to replace its silver coins with aluminium ones; more and more denominations were switched to aluminium coins as hyperinflation progressed in the country. By the mid-20th century, aluminium had become a part of everyday lives, becoming an essential component of housewares. Aluminium freight cars first appeared in 1931. Their lower mass allowed them to carry more cargo. During the 1930s, aluminium emerged as a civil engineering material used in both basic construction and building interiors. Its use in military engineering for both airplanes and tank engines advanced. Aluminium obtained from recycling was considered inferior to primary aluminium because of poorer chemistry control as well as poor removal of dross and slags. Recycling grew overall but depended largely on the output of primary production: for instance, as electric energy prices declined in the United States in the late 1930s, more primary aluminium could be produced using the energy-expensive Hall–Héroult process. This rendered recycling less necessary, and thus aluminium recycling rates went down. By 1940, mass recycling of post-consumer aluminium had begun.
During World War II, production peaked again, exceeding 1,000,000 metric tons for the first time in 1941. Aluminium was used heavily in aircraft production and was a strategic material of extreme importance; so much so that when Alcoa (successor of Hall's Pittsburgh Reduction Company and the aluminium production monopolist in the United States at the time) did not expand its production, the United States Secretary of the Interior proclaimed in 1941, "If America loses the war, it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America". In 1939, Germany was the world's leading producer of aluminium; the Germans thus saw aluminium as their edge in the war. Aluminium coins continued to be used but while they symbolized a decline on their introduction, by 1939, they had come to represent power. (In 1941, they began to be withdrawn from circulation to save the metal for military needs.) After the United Kingdom was attacked in 1940, it started an ambitious program of aluminium recycling; the newly appointed Minister of Aircraft Production appealed to the public to donate any household aluminium for airplane building. The Soviet Union received 328,100 metric tons of aluminium from its co-combatants from 1941 to 1945; this aluminium was used in aircraft and tank engines. Without these shipments, the output of the Soviet aircraft industry would have fallen by over a half. After the wartime peak, world production fell for three late-war and post-war years but then regained its rapid growth. In 1954, the world output equaled 2,810,000 metric tons; this production surpassed that of copper, historically second in production only to iron, making it the most produced non-ferrous metal.
== Aluminium Age ==
Earth's first artificial satellite Sputnik 1, launched in 1957, consisted of two joined aluminium hemispheres. All subsequent spacecraft have used aluminium to some extent. The aluminium can was first manufactured in 1956 and employed as a container for drinks in 1958. In the 1960s, aluminium was employed for the production of wires and cables. Since the 1970s, high-speed trains have commonly used aluminium for its high strength-to-weight ratio. For the same reason, the aluminium content of cars is growing. Six major companies dominated the world market by 1955: Alcoa, Alcan (originated as a part of Alcoa), Reynolds, Kaiser, Pechiney (merger of Compagnie d'Alais et de la Camargue that bought Deville's smelter and Société électrométallurgique française that hired Héroult), and Alusuisse (successor of Héroult's Aluminium Industrie Aktien Gesellschaft); their combined share of the market equaled 86%. From 1945, aluminium consumption grew by almost 10% each year for nearly three decades, gaining ground in building applications, electric cables, basic foils and the aircraft industry. In the early 1970s, an additional boost came from the development of aluminium beverage cans. The real price declined until the early 1970s; in 1973, the real price equaled $2,130 per metric ton (in 1998 United States dollars). The main drivers of the drop in price was the decline of extraction and processing costs, technological progress, and the increase in aluminium production, which first exceeded 10,000,000 metric tons in 1971.