who discovered aluminum and when?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History says that the chinese were using it in 300AD. but http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Al.html#Who says that it was discovered in 1825 by Hans Christian Oersted

which is correct????

Answer 1

Here is a third one:
Aluminum was discovered and named by Sir Humphry Davy in 1808.

Sources:
International Institute of Aluminum (I would trust them):
http://www.world-aluminium.org/history/index.html

They have a chronology that includes your 1825 event.

Origen of the Element Names:
http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/Elements/mineral.html

Answer 2

They didnt discover it they created it its an alloy! Charles Martin Hall invented the aluminum manufacturing process 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.

Answer 3

I think both are correct. It just means that the Chinese knew about it before, but in the "western world" we heard about it in 1825.

Maybe the Chinese in 300AD didn't know it was something different also.

Answer 4

Wikpedia is not correct. Aluminum is too easily oxidized to have been isolatable by any process available in 300 AD. Aluminum became useful when the Hall process of electrolytic refining was invented in the 19th century.

Answer 5

This is confusing. Aluminum has been around a long time. But it was so hard to separate it from the ore, it was more expensive than gold. It wasn't until a less expensive way to produce it became available that it was widely used.