History of Inventions and Innovations for Aluminum Production

Industrial production of aluminum started in 1856 with the chemical method developed by Sainte-Claire Deville. In 1886, Charles Hall and Paul Heroult invented the electrolytic reduction of alumina with carbon, which quickly became the only industrial method used to produce aluminum until today. Even though the Hall-Heroult process remained the same, the production technology changed tremendously since the beginning, to reduce the production cost and specific energy consumption, increase productivity, and improve environment. In this paper, the most notable inventions and innovations for improvement of the Hall-Heroult process in the last 100 years will be described as well as efforts to break away from this process, which all have been unsuccessful so far. These include direct reduction of alumina with carbon and the aluminum chloride process. Within the electrolysis process, until now unsuccessful research to use non-consumable anodes and wettable cathodes for large-scale production will also be described.