Aluminum Company of America Alcoa

Once again, a chemical idea had turned industrial, as the price per pound of aluminum dropped from 4.86 in 1888 to 0.78 in 1893. In 1907 the company was reorganized as the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), of which Hall was made a vice-president. In 1911 Hall was awarded the... 

In 1972, The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) announced a large-scale project to develop a commercial electrolytic aluminum chloride process [256], Based on extensive laboratory studies, a demonstration plant (15,000 tons per year) was built and operated for several years. Alcoa used commercial grade low calcined alumina as input material for the chlorination step, where it was reacted with chlorine and carbon to form gaseous A1C13 and C02 and CO. The... 

The electrolysis process for producing aluminum was developed by Charles Martin Hall while he was a student at Oberlin College. His work in aluminum chemistry eventually led to the formation of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). The reduction process for aluminum can be represented as... 

Alcoa Laboratories, Aluminum Company of America, Alcoa Center, PA 15069... 

At the same time, McKay was informed of an outbreak of mottled enamel in children who lived in Bauxite, a town near Colorado Springs. Bauxite was named for large deposits of bauxite, which the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) mined there. Children who drank spring- or shallow-well water had normal teeth, but children drinking deep-well water had severe enamel mottling. In 1931, ALCOA s chief chemist,... 

ELTON I. CAIRNS, Applied Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California DANIEL D. CUBICCIOTTI, Nuclear Power Division, Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, California LARRY R. FAULKNER, Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign ADAM HELLER, Electronic Materials Research Department, AT T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New lersey NOEL IARRETT, Chemical Engineering Research and Development, Aluminum Company of America, Alcoa Center, Pennsylvania... 

Brewis has recently discussed the nature of adhesives used for aluminum. The two major aluminum manufacturers. Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) and Reynolds Metals, have published small useful volumes on all aspects of aluminum bonding, although these volumes are not recent.Another excellent detailed discussion of aluminum adhesives, particularly from the viewpoint of durability, is given by Minford of ALCOA,... 

These first globules are carefully preserved as the Crown Jewels of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), in Pittsburgh. Alcoa, founded on Hall s invention, is today a company with more than 50000 employees. 

The first commercially available activated alumina was a granular material designated F-1 by the manufacturer, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa). This material was introduced in the 1930s and was an important solid desiccant for several decades. A spherical form of activated alumina, H-I5I Alumina Gel, was later introduced by Alcoa and proved quite successful. Production of H-151 by Alcoa ceased in 1985, and it was replaced by newer spherical products such as H-152 and F-200. The granular F-l is still available, but is not considered to be an important solid desiccant for gas dehydration (Woosley, 1990). Both granular and spherical activated alumina desiccants have been introduced by other manufacturers and several of these are listed in Table 12-4. 

K. Wefers and C. Misra, Oxides and Hydroxides ofHluminum, A.lcoa Technical Taper 19, revised, Alcoa Laboratories, Aluminum Company of America,... 

F-200 ActivatedMlumina forMdsorption Applications, Product Data, Alcoa Chemicals Division, Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1985. R. D. Woosley, "Activated Alumina Desiccants," in L. D. Hart, ed.. Alumina Chemicals Science and Technology Handbook, American Ceramic Society, Westerville, Ohio, 1990. 

E. H. Spuhler and C. L. h>ur.. on,MvoidingStress Corrosion Cracking in High StrengthMluminumMlloy Structures, ALCOA Green Letter, Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburg, Pa., Apr. 1970. 

The Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America) process involves the electrolysis of aluminum chloride which is carried out in a molten bath of the composition 50% sodium chloride, 45% lithium chloride and 5% aluminum chloride, maintained at 700 °C. The Bayer process, which involves the production of pure alumina by the dissolution of bauxite with caustic soda and which has been described in the chapter on hydrometallurgy, must be taken into account while presenting a complete picture of the aluminum extraction flowsheet. It... 

ALCOA A process proposed for manufacturing aluminum metal by the electrolysis of molten aluminum chloride, made by chlorinating alumina. It requires 30 percent less power than the Hall-Heroult process and operates at a lower temperature, but has proved difficult to control. Developed by the Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, in the 1970s and operated in Palestine, TX, from 1976 abandoned in 1985 because of corrosion problems and improvements in the efficiency of conventional electrolysis. 

Selexsorb A five-stage process for purifying ethylene before converting it to polyethylene. Developed by the Industrial Chemicals Division of the Aluminum Company of America. More than 50 installations were operating in 1996. The name is now used for a family of selective adsorbents based on alumina produced by Alcoa. The range includes Selexsorb CD, CDO, CDX, COS, SPC1, HC1. 

This picture changed in the 1886 when an American chemist, Charles Martin Hall (1863— 1914), and a French chemist, Paul Louis-Toussaint Heroult (1863—1914), both discovered, at about the same time, a new process for extracting aluminum from molten aluminum oxide by electrolysis. (It might be noted that both discoverers have the same birth and death dates as well as the same date of discovery.) Hall was inspired by his teacher to find a way to inexpensively produce aluminum metal. He wired together numerous wet cells to form a battery that produced enough electricity to separate the aluminum from the melted aluminum oxide (mixed with the minerals cryolyte or fluorite), by the process known as electrolysis. Hall formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Co., which is now known as the Aluminum Company of America, or Alcoa. His company produced so much aluminum that the price dropped to about sixty cents per kilogram. 

The catalyst employed was Alcoa Activated Alumina (Grade F-l, 4- to 8-mesh) from the Aluminum Company of America. A fresh catalyst is brought to a condition of maximum activity by passing a slow stream of air through the catalyst bed for 94 hours at 390-405°. Without this pretreatment, yields are 5-10% lower than those reported here. The catalyst is reactivated after each run by passing air through it for 39 hours at 390-405°. 

The submitters used 4- to 8-mesh alumina from Peter Spence and Sons, Widnes, Lancashire, England. The checkers used 8- to 14-mesh Alorco H-41 obtained from the Aluminum Company of America, 1200 Alcoa Building, Pittsburgh 19, Pennsylvania. 

The Aluminum Company of America, currently referred to as Alcoa, tested a new and interesting concept of using a cermet as the base material [245], It was composed of a mixture of Ni—Fc—O with excess Ni or Cu. The recommended composition was NiFe204 + 18% NiO + 17% Cu. The excess metal provided good electrical conductivity and a simple connection to the current lead. The surface layer of the anode was completely oxidized, but this outer oxide layer could be kept fairly thin. 

NOEL JARRETT received his M.S. degree from the University of Michigan. At present he holds the position of Technical Director, Chemical Engineering R D, Alcoa Laboratories, Aluminum Company of America, and is active in a number of professional societies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Society of Metals, and holds 15 patents in the extraction and purification of metals. 

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