Despite being one of the most abundant metals on Earth, aluminium was discovered relatively late, at least in its pure form. Although it is one of the most preferred packaging materials for food and beverage industry today, there was a time when even emperors considered an aluminium plate to be a rare and precious luxury. The metal which fuelled the Industrial Revolution, World War II, Space Race, and Green Transition has always been a geopolitically strategic material, even in ancient times, and the history of this metal is as fascinating as its future.
Aluminium in pre-industrial times
In the ancient and medieval world, alum (a salt of aluminium) was known mainly for its medicinal and textile dyeing uses. While some rare cases of its use as a metal are known, this was the exception, not the rule. For example, some soldiers used it to cover wooden forts and make them fireproof, which presages the vital military function of the metal today.
Alum also had a geopolitical aspect to it, even in medieval times. It was widely used as a fixative for dyes in the textile industry and was thus considered an essential good for manufacturing. The Italian city-states and Ottoman Empire would constantly clash over the production and control of alum.
In 1807, the famous British chemist Humphry Davy proved the metallic nature of alum and first coined the term ‘aluminium’ for pure metal, but isolating the pure metal still proved impossible. Friedrich Wohler finally cracked the code in 1845 when he finally produced a few small granules of aluminium.
However, the new metal was so challenging to produce that it quickly became one of the most expensive metals around. Its cost was almost twice that of gold, and it became fashionable as a luxury item for use in jewellery, becoming known as clay-silver due to its price and appearance.
From clay-silver to condensed electricity
The French Emperor Napoleon III was a particular enthusiast of this new metal and sponsored scientific research into the industrial production of this metal. Napoleon would throw banquets where the highest guests of honour were served on aluminium plates and cutlery, while the rest had to be satisfied with gold.
The breakthrough finally came in 1886 with the invention of the Hall-Heroult process. Aluminium could be produced cheaply using large quantities of electricity, which genuinely began the mass adoption of this metal we are familiar with under the new nickname of ‘condensed electricity’. The usage of the metal exploded, and it began to be seen everywhere, from pans to eyeglasses to ships. The price fell ten times, production increased 15 times, and Germany even began making coins out of this metal.
Due to its light yet strong nature, aluminium soon came into demand by governments to build warplanes. While this first came into focus in World War I, the metal indeed came into its own in the Second World War. Production reached a million tonnes, and it began to be considered the metal that would win or lose the war. Its use in building planes, tanks and engines meant governments even began confiscating the metal from households for war production.
The aluminium age
After the war, the production and utility of this metal expanded to such a degree that some historians consider it the start of a new era in human history, the Aluminium Age (after the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age). It soon became the second most produced metal, only after steel, and its uses spread to such varied objects as wiring, beer cans, automobiles, trains, construction and foil. Consumption during this time grew by nearly 10% a year.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I in 1957 and began the Space Race, the metal assumed a new dimension. Built almost entirely out of aluminium, it created a place in the imagination of sci-fi and futurists as the metal of the future. Governments began encouraging recycling to maximise quantities of this increasingly strategic material. On the other hand, new- age designers started experimenting with its use in construction, architecture and packaging. Satellites, space shuttles and rockets took this metal to the moon.
Currently, production has moved out of Western countries to lower-cost places like the BRICS nations. Even though production has exceeded multi-million tonnes, the ever-increasing applications have meant that demand for this metal is still rising. It truly has come a long way from the early days of textiles.
In the modern age, it is used in almost every aspect of our life, from the mundane (cutlery, cooking utensils, furniture, bicycles, cans and foil) to the industrial (construction frames, wiring, pipes, machinery, engines and glass) to high value-added and high-tech applications like automobiles, spacecraft, trains, drones, aircraft, pharmaceuticals and electronics. Undoubtedly, more applications will eventually be found, meaning this wonder metal isn’t going out of fashion anytime soon.
