Aluminum Production & Bauxite Mining: "Aluminum" 1941 OPM 10min

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• published: 15 Mar 2012
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more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ "Shows the making of aluminum from the mining of the ore to its use in airplanes. Bauxite is mined in Dutch Guiana, shipped to the U.S. and processed in an aluminum plant. The ore is changed from rock to liquid and then to metal. Shows the rolling of long sheets of the metals Shows the construction of new aluminum plants, dams and power plants, and rolling mills--all essential for aluminum production. Includes many brief shots of military airplanes." NEW VERSION with improved video & sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxnBPd-4Vf0 Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). see also: "Aluminum on the March" 1956 Reynolds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EujDjXSN-Q "Dateline Tomorrow" Alcoa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMYqfirqsic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium Aluminium or aluminum... is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances. Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal, in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface... The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite. Aluminium is remarkable for the metal's low density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates. Despite its prevalence in the environment, aluminium salts are not known to be used by any form of life. In keeping with its pervasiveness, aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Due to their prevalence, potential beneficial (or otherwise) biological roles of aluminium compounds are of continuing interest. Physical Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile and malleable metal with appearance ranging from silvery to dull gray, depending on the surface roughness. Aluminium is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite. A fresh film of aluminium film serves as a good reflector (approximately 92%) of visible light and an excellent reflector (as much as 98%) of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of pure aluminium is 7--11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel. It is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Corrosion resistance can be excellent due to a thin surface layer of aluminium oxide that forms when the metal is exposed to air, effectively preventing further oxidation. The strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is also often greatly reduced when many aqueous salts are present, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure... Aluminium is one of the few metals that retain full silvery reflectance in finely powdered form, making it an important component of silver-colored paints... Aluminium forms strong chemical bonds with oxygen. Compared to most other metals, it is difficult to extract from ore, such as bauxite, due to the energy required to reduce aluminium oxide (Al2O3). For example, direct reduction with carbon, as is used to produce iron, is not chemically possible because aluminium is a stronger reducing agent than carbon. Indirect carbothermic reduction can be carried out using carbon and Al2O3, which forms an intermediate Al4C3 and this can further yield aluminium metal at a temperature of 1900--2000 °C. This process is still under development; it requires less energy and yields less CO2 than the Hall-Héroult process, the major industrial process for aluminium extraction. Because of the high melting point of aluminium oxide (about 2,000 °C (3,600 °F)) the pure metal is extracted by electrolysis. In this process, aluminium oxide is dissolved in molten cryolite with calcium fluoride and then reduced to aluminium at a temperature between 950 and 980 °C (1,740 to 1,800 °F). Cryolite is a chemical compound of aluminium and sodium fluorides: (Na3AlF6). Although cryolite is found as a mineral in Greenland, its synthetic form is used in the industry. The aluminium oxide is obtained by refining bauxite in the Bayer process. The electrolytic process replaced the Wöhler process, which involved the reduction of anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium....