- US chemist who
developed a process for the commercial production of aluminium 1886.
A similar process was independently but simultaneously developed in
France by Paul Héroult.
He found that when aluminium was mixed with cryolite (sodium aluminium
fluoride), its melting point was lowered and electrolysis became commercially
viable. It had previously been as costly as gold, but by 1914 its price
was 40 cents a kilogram.
Hall was born in Ohio and educated at Oberlin. He invented the aluminium
process at 22 and, after initial difficulties, formed the Pittsburgh
Reduction Company (later to become the Aluminum Company of America)
and became a multimillionaire.
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