[Sca-cooks] Aluminum

[Daniel Phelps]

This off the web...

"(L. alumen: alum) The ancient Greeks and Romans used alum as an astringent
and as a mordant in dyeing. In 1761 de Morveau proposed the name alumine for
the base in alum, and Lavoisier, in 1787, thought this to be the oxide of a
still undiscovered metal.

Wohler is generally credited with having isolated the metal in 1827,
although an impure form was prepared by Oersted two years earlier. In 1807,
Davy proposed the name aluminum for the metal, undiscovered at that time,
and later agreed to change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter, the name
aluminum was adopted to conform with the "ium" ending of most elements, and
this spelling is now in use elsewhere in the world.

Sources
The method of obtaining aluminum metal by the electrolysis of alumina
dissolved in cryolite was discovered in 1886 by Hall in the U.S. and at
about the same time by Heroult in France. Cryolite, a natural ore found in
Greenland, is no longer widely used in commercial production, but has been
replaced by an artificial mixture of sodium, aluminum, and calcium
fluorides."

I seem to remember that Good Queen Vickie had some aluminum table ware and
it was deemed a great wonder and an extravagance at the time.

Daniel