how do people obtain aluminum?

Answer 1

by finding cans. but really they mine the ore and process it.

Answer 2

Bauxite ore is overwhelmed and aluminum hydroxide produced with the aid of a chemical digestion technique. that's converted to alumina which finally will become aluminum. That demands an electrolytical technique. Australia is rich in bauxite, yet no longer low value electrical energy. and because plenty electrical energy is used to offer aluminum, countries like Canada, with hydroelectric components produce a great deal of finished aluminum.

Answer 3

I'm in the middle of some contract work in an aluminum mill this week...

At this particular plant, they ship a white powder called alumina (refined from bauxite), up the Mississippi River from South America by barge. This powder is vacuummed out of the barges with huge hoses and blown to the 'pot line'. There this powder is poured into large ovens that have a series of anodes (blocks made from pitch and coke that conduct electricity) and cathodes. Great amounts of electricity are sent through the powder, and electrolysis takes place producing molten aluminum. This is poured into large bowl-like steel containers called crucibles and poured another furnace where other metals like silicon, magnesium, Iron, etc are added to create various alloys. This is then poured into molds that make it into billets (like big rods), ingots (bars) or sows (like a big biscuit) and shipped out by trucks and railroads to other factories that make it into cans, airplanes, cars, etc.

The amount of electricity used is really something. The conduits running under the floor of the potline which carries the electricity from the nearby powerplant produces a magnetic field so strong it kills the engine of my truck when I drive over them and will make a wristwatch go crazy. I dropped my zippo lighter, and the magnetic force pulled it sideways and instead of hitting the floor it went several feet to the side and sat spinning on it's corner on the side of a steel cart. Large chains stand straight out like they are a solid rod, and some of the huge hooks on their 30 ton cranes are made from titanium (several hundred pounds of titanium for these hooks is very expensive) so they won't be pulled sideways when they try to pick up something steel.

Answer 4

Aluminium or aluminum (see the "Spelling" section below) is a silvery and ductile member of the poor metal group of chemical elements. In the periodic table it has the symbol Al and atomic number 13.

Aluminium is found primarily in the bauxite ore and is remarkable for its resistance to corrosion (due to the phenomenon of passivation) and its light weight. Aluminium is used in many industries to manufacture a large variety of products and is very important to the world economy. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and very important in other areas of transportation and building.

You could get more information from the link below...

Answer 5

It is extracted from bauxite - an aluminium rich rock which forms over a very long period of time from the extreme weathering of other rocks. A large proportion of aluminium comes from Australia.

The main aluminium bearing mineral in the rock - gibbsite - is heated until it turns in to alumina (aluminium oxide). This is then melted and then a lot of electricity is passed through the melt. The aluminium metal collects at the negative electrode.

Answer 6

Today its produced by the American company ALCOA. Here's an article:


Although aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust, it is never found free in nature. All of the earth's aluminum has combined with other elements to form compounds. Two of the most common compounds are alum, such as potassium aluminum sulfate (KAl(SO4)2·12H2O), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3). About 8.2% of the earth's crust is composed of aluminum.

Scientists suspected than an unknown metal existed in alum as early as 1787, but they did not have a way to extract it until 1825. Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish chemist, was the first to produce tiny amounts of aluminum. Two years later, Friedrich Wöhler, a German chemist, developed a different way to obtain aluminum. By 1845, he was able to produce samples large enough to determine some of aluminum's basic properties. Wöhler's method was improved in 1854 by Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, a French chemist. Deville's process allowed for the commercial production of aluminum. As a result, the price of aluminum dropped from around $1200 per kilogram in 1852 to around $40 per kilogram in 1859. Unfortunately, aluminum remained too expensive to be widely used.

Two important developments in the 1880s greatly increased the availability of aluminum. The first was the invention of a new process for obtaining aluminum from aluminum oxide. Charles Martin Hall, an American chemist, and Paul L. T. Héroult, a French chemist, each invented this process independently in 1886. The second was the invention of a new process that could cheaply obtain aluminum oxide from bauxite. Bauxite is an ore that contains a large amount of aluminum hydroxide (Al2O3·3H2O), along with other compounds. Karl Joseph Bayer, an Austrian chemist, developed this process in 1888. The Hall-Héroult and Bayer processes are still used today to produce nearly all of the world's aluminum.

With an easy way to extract aluminum from aluminum oxide and an easy way to extract large amounts of aluminum oxide from bauxite, the era of inexpensive aluminum had begun. In 1888, Hall formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which is now known as the Aluminum Company of America, or Alcoa. When it opened, his company could produce about 25 kilograms of aluminum a day. By 1909, his company was producing about 41,000 kilograms of aluminum a day. As a result of this huge increase of supply, the price of aluminum fell rapidly to about $0.60 per kilogram.

Today, aluminum and aluminum alloys are used in a wide variety of products: cans, foils and kitchen utensils, as well as parts of airplanes, rockets and other items that require a strong, light material. Although it doesn't conduct electricity as well as copper, it is used in electrical transmission lines because of its light weight. It can be deposited on the surface of glass to make mirrors, where a thin layer of aluminum oxide quickly forms that acts as a protective coating. Aluminum oxide is also used to make synthetic rubies and sapphires for lasers.

Answer 7

ah chemstry ppl! ahhh
i think i rember
aluminium ore! haha they extract it from the ore n then do this whol procedure. dude go into IGCSE web page in chemstry n look for it, twil tell u all.

Answer 8

http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/about_alcoa/dirt.asp