The Production of Aluminium and its Industrial Use

Abstract

THIS book brings together the theory and practice of the aluminium industry in a complete and readable form. It commences with a more or less detailed and historical survey of the chemical processes which were employed before the metal was produced upon a commercial scale by the aid of the electric current. The successful chemical processes which were all based upon the reduction of salts of aluminium with sodium and were simply modifications of the method used by Wöhler in 1827, when he discovered the metal, brought first and foremost in their train the remarkable cheapening in the manufacture of sodium; because unless sodium could be obtained at a low cost it was impossible to manufacture aluminium cheaply. However, by purely chemical processes it was never found possible to produce aluminium below about thirty shillings per kilo. In fact, in 1889 the price was 38s. per kilo., but at the end of 1891, soon after the advent of successful electrolytic processes, it had fallen to 5s., and at the present day it is rather less than 2s. per kilo.

The Production of Aluminium and its Industrial Use.

By Adolphe Minet. Translated, with additions, by Leonard Waldo. Pp. vi + 266. (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1905.) Price 10s. 6d. net.