Aluminum is abundant in the Earth’s crust and has been known since the discovery of clay-like bauxite (the predominant source of aluminum) in 1821. Early aluminum-refining efforts took multiple steps and required the application of electrical currents — hardly an easy process in the days before widespread electrical generation. This made aluminum nearly on par with gold for rarity and prestige. Before Hall’s process was developed, its status was “capped” when a pyramid of refined aluminum was used on the top of the Washington Monument. Wired recounts Hall’s development:
Hall, fresh out of Oberlin College in 1886, tried dissolving the aluminum salt in a fused-cryolite (sodium aluminum fluoride) bath instead of water. Voila: metallic aluminum. Hall needed money to scale up the process, and he eventually got it from the Pittsburgh’s Mellon Bank, founding a company that would become the Aluminum Company of America, now Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) . …
The Hall process (sometimes called the Hall-Heroult process) has made aluminum available for widespread use in aviation, construction, kitchenware, beer kegs, cooking foil and myriad other uses. The price of aluminum metal dropped from $32 a pound in the 1850s ($730 in today’s money) to $15 a pound before the Hall process ($340 today) to 18 cents a pound in 1914 (about $3.75). The aluminum market is subject to market fluctuations, but it’s increased from 50 cents a pound to more than a dollar in the last 15 years.
Variants of the Hall process are still in use today and require between 6.5 and 9 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy to produce a pound of aluminum. That’s why recycling aluminum uses 95 percent less energy than making it from ore. A recycled can saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for up to three and a half hours.
The companies that benefit
No Dow component benefits more directly from the combined value of these two patents than The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA), the aircraft manufacturer that has long been a prime user of both General Electric Company (NYSE:GE)’s jet turbines and Alcoa’s aluminum. These two developments — efficient turbines and a strong but inexpensive and lightweight metal — contributed enormously to the Jet Age, which has shrunk the world to a point where you can take off from nearly any airport and land at nearly any other airport in the world within a day’s flight.
The article The Two Patents That Built the Jet Age originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Alex Planes.
Fool contributor Alex Planes holds no financial position in any company mentioned here. Add him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter @TMFBiggles for more insight into markets, history, and technology. The Motley Fool recommends Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of Ford and General Electric Company.
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