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Aluminium: The metal that just keeps on giving
- pstuart 13y agoNext up should be titanium: http://www.defensenews.com/article/20110720/DEFSECT04/107200305/Breakthroughs-Promise-Cheaper-Titanium http://www.defensenews.com/article/20110720/DEFSECT04/107200...
- sjwright 13y agoOr as Americans like to call it, Titanum.
- e1l1 13y agoHa. No, we don't, but I guess we should.
- Lagged2Death 13y agoDid you know that "Aluminum" was the discoverer's own spelling, and was actually used in Britain soon after the naming? "Aluminium" was an arbitrary revision made because influential people just liked it better. In other words, the British spelling was just a matter of British cultural hegemony at the time, just as American spellings are matters of American cultural hegemony today. http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm I didn't know any of this until just now.
- btbuilder 13y agoThe link you posted says: "Sir Humphry made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium (this was in 1807) then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium in 1812." To me it reads that British academics (Sir Humphry's peers) prefered the -ium spelling. It doesn't say they used political pressure to force him to change it. While the use of both spellings were in almost equal use in the general British and US populations for a long time, the article hypothesises that the -um spelling became dominant in the US because of Webster's -um entry.
- yaddayadda 13y agoNo, we don't. Nor should we.
- philwelch 13y agoOr as British like to call it, "Titaninium".
- Gravityloss 13y ago"the cost of titanium will drop by a factor of two to five" Steel is easy to weld (depends on type, but generally) Aluminum is harder Titanium is even harder. It reacts with nitrogen. Steel is relatively easy to machine Aluminum can be even easier. Titanium is very hard. Sounds like there might be some roadblocks on wide spread adoption of titanium still, even if the raw material gets cheaper. The SR-71 was largely constructed out of titanium since the whole airframe heated up to high temperatures in high speed flight. The maintenance facilities had welding stations that had nitrogenless atmospheres under a "bubble".
- na85 13y ago>Steel is relatively easy to machine Aluminum can be even easier. Mechanical engineer here. This depends heavily on the alloy you're dealing with. Many Aluminum alloys are so soft that they'll actually melt and subsequently bond to the tool surface when they're being cut/ground/sanded/etc. Also Aluminum tends to have a very low shear strength which means it won't hold a thread the way most steels will - this is why you typically see rivets in aircraft skin.
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y agoAs I discovered the first time I tried to machine an aluminum extrusion. I was used to 6061 alloys that machined very well dry, but this "hardware-store grade" extrusion softened enough to weld itself to a nice Niagara endmill, ruining it :-(
- znowi 13y agoWould the recycled aluminium Range Rover cost less?
- bnegreve 13y agoIt seems that they already are. From the article: >Novelis has seen a 25% increase in demand from the motor industry in the last year, most of it coming from one of its biggest customers, Jaguar Land Rover, which has just begun manufacturing Range Rovers with aluminium. >Currently, Novelis obtains almost 50% of its aluminium used to make a new Range Rover from junk - empty cans, scrapped vehicles, demolition sites - and it aims to raise that to 80% by 2020. It makes a lot of sens, if you ask me.
- Scramblejams 13y agoThe question is, would the recycled aluminum (I'm in the US) Range Rover cost less than what? 1) Less than a Range Rover made of aluminum which came straight from bauxite? Assumedly the answer is yes, otherwise the motivation for recycling would be unclear. 2) Less than a Range Rover made conventionally, that is, out of steel? Very unlikely, steel is really, really cheap.
- scott_karana 13y agoSteel is cheaper, but unfavourable in modern vehicles, generally, due to its weight.
- happycube 13y agoThat Sapphire iPhone glass sure seems a lot like Transparent Aluminum, now... "hello, iPhone"
- Samuel_Michon 13y agoThe iPhone display is covered by Corning’s Gorilla Glass (not sapphire). The iPhone 4S’ TouchID sensor (the home button) is covered by a small synthetic sapphire pane. However, given Apple’s substantial investment in GT Advanced, the company might use sapphire for larger panes in the future. http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/04/apple-to-build-new-700-employee-sapphire-glass-manufacturing-plant-in-arizona/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/04/apple-to-build-new-700-e... http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/12/apples-new-manufacturing-partner-gt-advanced-uses-particle-accelerator-to-cut-sapphire-glass-production-costs/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/12/apples-new-manufacturing...
- aivaomo 13y agoMake that the 5S' home button/TouchID sensor. Plus the outermost element of the rear camera lens is rather sensibly sapphire, IIRC.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago/u/aivaomo is hellbanned, but here is his reply to my earlier comment: Make that the 5S’ home button/TouchID sensor. Plus the outermost element of the rear camera lens is rather sensibly sapphire, IIRC.
- veganarchocap 13y agoGood guy Aluminium.
- js2 13y agoJust don't spill any mercury on it. http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-09/amazing-rusting-aluminum http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-09/amazing-rustin...
- bsimpson 13y agoAfter reading both your article and the OP, I'm very keen to see a video of mercury spilled on sapphire.
- huggah 13y agoGood question. I'm not sure, but I suspect it shouldn't do anything interesting; mercury allows oxygen to move through the otherwise impermeable aluminium oxide crust and "rust" the metal. Since sapphire is already 100% aluminium oxide, but arranged in a crystal lattice I think it should be stable in contact with mercury unless the mercury disrupts the lattice (a possibility--my physical chemistry is weak).
- thaumasiotes 13y agoWell, sapphire is quite easy to obtain, and I believe that's also true of mercury. I'd be a little hesitant to expose mercury to the air near myself, though. :/ If you know how to do it safely，go for it!
- regularfry 13y agoLiquid mercury is quite boringly safe. There are a bunch of entertainingly toxic (and mobile) compounds, though.
- VLM 13y agoThe vapor pressure goes up surprisingly fast with temp, such that a contaminated cold room temp in the winter might be "eh" but it could get bad on a hot sunny summer day. Modern home insulation probably doesn't help much. Another comment is sulfur is cheap and widely available at garden stores etc and cinnabar toxicity is greatly exaggerated, because historically anyone who mined it, smelted it, and the smelting is a very effective way to get killed just by being nearby. I wouldn't eat it intentionally, etc, but after sulfur neutralization its mostly harmless. Its a much lower vapor pressure and relatively stable compound compared to elemental Hg. And it'll amalgamate with gold jewelry, if I recall. I'm old enough to have played with Hg bare handed as a kid. Its kind of like gunpowder, respect it and you'll be safe, make a habit in your life of doing dumb things and nothing is ever safe.
- mchannon 13y agoThe spelling with more legitimacy is Aluminum. Sir Humphrey Davy, its discoverer, called it Aluminum when he published his work Chemical Philosophy in 1812. Some anonymous dilettante (anonymous to this day!) thought, upon reviewing said book, it sounded better (more classical) with the extra I and syllable. Everybody calls Aluminum's oxide Alumina, not Aluminia. Nobody else seems to feel the need to rename Platinum Platinium, or Molybdenum Molybdenium, or Tantalum Tantalium. We Americans too often like to mock other cultures for being different, and our basis is usually wrong when we do. Maybe mocking our pronunciation and spelling isn't a habit you want to hold on to.
- rickdale 13y agoSir Humphrey Davy first used the word aluminia but Charles Marting Hall was the first person to come up with an inexpensive way to produce aluminum, which is what brought the metal in to wide spread commercial use.[1] [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_Hall
- orbitingpluto 13y agoDon't mention Hall without Héroult. Apparently that's the equivalent of saying Newton invented calculus w/o mentioning Leibniz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-H%C3%A9roult_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-H%C3%A9roult_process
- grecy 13y agocitation needed Wikipedia seems to have a different story that you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- 001sky 13y agoThe earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: "Had I been so fortunate as to have obtained more certain evidences on this subject, and to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium."[67][68] Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy == The main point of context.
- rasur 13y agoI've always liked Aluminium in a powdered form and mixed with iron oxide in the correct proportion: Thermite :D
- zimbu668 13y agoMake sure you know what you're doing. This happened in the apartment building we were living in last year: http://www.denverpost.com/kiszla/ci_20952038/apartment-fire-at-willow-run-near-128th-and http://www.denverpost.com/kiszla/ci_20952038/apartment-fire-...
- rasur 13y agoThanks! As far as I'm concerned, Thermite is a wide-open-spaces/designated area, no-children-or-small-animals kind of substance. Definitely not for home use (well, unless your objective is to burn the house down..).
- fzltrp 13y agoEven storage of the metal may bring benefits: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-alum....
- Swannie 13y agoWow. Learned a lot from the linked shared here. Thanks.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoIndeed, there is a growing industry for manufacturing industrial sapphires the size of a large bucket, suitable for use in bullet-proof glass, aeroplane windows and soon - unscratchable smartphone displays. seriously - Transparent Aluminum :-)
- venomsnake 13y agoPlain old corundum - you can get pieces of it the size of your fist if you see what is left after welding railroad tracks with termite.
- willdonie 13y ago"... welding railroad tracks with _termite_." Sheesh! With the above post the state of spelling on the Internet reaches a new low.
- dllthomas 13y agoThey dropped a single letter, and it resulted in something that was still a word. What internet have you been dealing with?
- Samuel_Michon 13y agoIf anyone else was wondering, it was supposed to read ‘thermite’. (I had to DDG it, and then still, I had never heard of the stuff.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite
- dllthomas 13y agoThermite is amazing stuff. There's some thought that part of the reason the Hindenburg burned so much so fast was a thermite reaction in the stuff it was painted with: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/hindenburg-minimyth.htm http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/hindenb...
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- dhughes 13y agoA PBS show on a few nights ago had a history of aluminum and its uses. In the show it mentioned aluminum is too soft when pure so copper was added but the discoverer found even after copper was added it was still too soft, he got fed up went away for a few days and when he came back the alloy was harder; age hardening. My phone was damaged and I wondered if my keys scratched my SG3 smartphone, Gorilla Glass has a hardness from what I have read anywhere from a 3 to a 6 but corundum (oxidized aluminum) has a Mohs hardness of 9. Then I found out scratch resistance is not hardness. I think the SG3 screen's scratch resistance is significantly inferior to the SG2 screen.
- gngeal 13y ago"Budoucnost patří aluminiu!" -- Jára da Cimrman
- lancewiggs 13y agoI've worked in aluminium smelters. Three interesting things: They are hugely energy intensive and a good way of exporting cheap electricity from otherwise hard to connect locations. The very bottom of New Zealand, The North east of South Africa as well as Mozambique, the Middle East and of course Norway and Russia. Hydroelectric power, free once the dam is built, is ideal, but oil (Middle East) and coal (Southern Africa) are also used. They are generally located next to a port so that bulk shipments of alumina and carbon (coal) are easily transferred. The carbon is used to make the anodes and cathodes used in the giant 'pots' where the reaction happens. The metal itself is alloyed up in final form, but is generally shipped from the smelters in pure ignots, at a price related to the LME quoted price. And a bonus - we were forbidden to have aluminium cans on site. If they ended up in a pot (full of molten bubbling alumina, cryolite and aluminium) then any fluid left inside the can would get super heated and result in an explosion.
- randomafrican 13y agoIceland !
- caf 13y ago(geothermal)
- bigiain 13y agoI've heard Alimin(i)um referred to as "frozen electricity" and "solid electricity" - the real "value" in Al ingots is based on the electricity required to separate it from the oxygen in bauxite. Another alumin(i)um/electricity anecdote - apparently the smelter in the mountains behind Portland, which was built to take advantage of the cheap hydro electricity there, closed down when Google and Amazon built datacanters there and outbid the Alumin(i)um companies for the electricity…
- mkingston 13y agoI knew I recognised your user name (maybe the fact you mentioned NZ first triggered something in my mind). Quite off topic, but you may be able to answer this: do you have any idea whether shutting down Tiwai Point would indeed affect NZ electricity prices significantly? It's kind of moot now (ugh), but I'm curious.
- Stochasticity 13y agoWhile it's true that there a wide number of applications, and Aluminum is theoretically perpetually recyclable, there is still a small problem. When an alloy is formed and elements added to pure Al they are exceptionally difficult to remove. This means that for alloy-specific applications the recycled 'aluminum' must have extra elements added to create the alloy desired. With continued recycling [over a long period of time] there is concern that alloys will converge upon a final aluminum alloy and we will no longer be able to create new application specific alloys.
- tdj 13y agoI'm surprise no-one mentioned ALICE - aluminium + ice (water). A paste-like substance that's quite a powerful rocket propellant. http://news.discovery.com/tech/nanoaluminum-rocket-fuel.html http://news.discovery.com/tech/nanoaluminum-rocket-fuel.html