When Aluminum Cost More Than Gold

Aluminum is literally one of the most common elements on Earth. So how did it come to be that aluminum once cost more than gold?

Was it similar to how the relatively common and easily acquired mined diamond came to be seen as valuable in the last century due to strict control of supply to consumers and some of the best marketing the world has ever seen? 

The simple answer is that although aluminum makes up about 8% of the Earth's crust, it has never been known to occur in its metallic form anywhere on Earth. Instead, aluminum appears mainly as a chemical compound across the globe, for example inside potassium aluminum sulfate.

Before aluminum was discovered, or even theorized, so called "alum compounds," like potassium aluminum sulfate, have been used extensively since antiquity for everything from leather tanning to fire-proofing. In fact, potassium aluminum sulfate (colloquially known as potassium alum) is still used today in things like aftershave and baking powder and most awesomely of all, in its crystal state it can be used as a "deodorant rock" that you rub on yourself to eliminate body odor.

Aluminum as we know it today was first created in a lab by Hans Christian Oersted by heating aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam in 1825. In honor of Davy's work which had inspired Oersted's experiment in the first place, this new metal was dubbed "aluminium."

Two years later, Friedrich Wöhler entered the aluminum manufacturing scene and developed a new way of isolating aluminum in its powdered form by improving upon Oersted's original experiment. Even then it took another 18 years for enough of the metal to be produced for scientists to properly study its properties, and it wasn't until 1845 that aluminum's remarkable lightness was noted.

All of that changed in 1886 when it was discovered (twice) that you could easily obtain oodles of aluminum using electrolysis. 

Two years after this, it was discovered by Karl Bayer that aluminum oxide could be made very cheaply from bauxite. In a few short years, aluminum went from being literally the most expensive metal on Earth to the cheapest. 

See more at: http://www.iabrasive.com/articles.