Why was aluminum more expensive than gold?
There was a time when only the most extravagant rich could afford an aluminum spoon or fork. This is not surprising, because in 1852 a kilogram of this metal cost 1200 US dollars, while a kilogram of gold did not cost more than 600 dollars. What was the reason for such a high price of aluminum and why did it depreciate so much? 
The mineral from which aluminum was once obtained is called alum or scientifically double salts of aluminum. It has been known since ancient times and was used by people for medical purposes, for disinfection and cauterization, for fixing color when dyeing fabrics and leather, and also as a means for impregnating wood in order to increase its fire-fighting characteristics. 
Nowadays, alum is included in some types of antibacterial soaps, lotions and all kinds of baking powder. But the main thing is that they have learned to extract aluminum from alum, which is not found in its pure form in the earth’s crust. The first to find a valuable metal in alum was the British chemist and geologist Humphry Davy. Without hesitation for a long time, he called it aluminum, since alum is called “alum” in Latin. Unfortunately, he could not isolate the metal itself. Almost 30 years before Davy, the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier suspected the presence of some metal in alum. But he only discovered aluminum oxide, calling it “agrill.” Lavoisier suggested that the metal could be in its pure form, but the matter did not go further than speculation. 
Humphry Davy The first person to complete the work of Davy and Lavoisier and obtain pure aluminum was the Danish scientist Hans Oersted. In 1825, he heated potassium amalgam and anhydrous aluminum chloride, resulting in white solid metal particles. It was a wonderful discovery, but, alas, the technology was not very productive. A more effective method for producing aluminum was proposed by a doctor, physicist and chemist from Germany, Friedrich Wöhler. He took Oersted’s method as a basis, but heated potassium and aluminum chloride. Wöhler produced metal granules of much higher quality. In 1854, the French chemist Henri Deville replaced potassium with sodium metal and things went even faster. 
Henri Etienne Saint-Clair Deville Not satisfied with his discovery, Deville continued experiments with alum and in 1863 obtained aluminum using the then revolutionary method of electrolysis. But more than 20 years passed before people learned to obtain in this way not just a pinch of aluminum powder, but industrial volumes of pure metal. This happened in 1886 and the laurels of the discovery are shared by two completely independent scientists from different countries – the Frenchman Paul Héroult and the American Charles Hall. At the time, the new technology was considered brilliant and was called the “Hall-Heroux process.” But science does not stand still, and soon a chemist from Russia, Karl Bayer, made the method cheaper and proposed producing aluminum oxide from bauxite, an ore that contains hydrates of aluminum oxide, iron oxide and silicon. 
The resulting metal was quite pure, but had a significant drawback – it was too soft. In 1903, the German scientist Alfred Wilm came up with the idea of adding 4% copper to aluminum, then sharply cooling the alloy and keeping it at room temperature for 5 days. The connection he obtained was much stronger than pure aluminum, but it was also easy to process. High-strength aluminum has become a German “trick”. The first plant for its production opened in the city of Düren, which is why the alloy began to be called “duralumin.” This name has survived to this day – duralumin is in demand in the aerospace industry, automotive industry and shipbuilding. As we can see, in order to obtain high-quality and durable aluminum, more than one generation of famous chemists had to work hard. Until the beginning of the 20th century, metal production technologies were not very productive and required complex manipulations with a large number of components. 
Copper gives aluminum strength It could be gold, which could be mined in the form of sand or even nuggets. It was precisely because of the difficulty of obtaining aluminum that it was valued much more than the “despicable yellow metal.” But it must be said that the more advanced the methods became, the cheaper aluminum was valued. In 1855, the metal was precious – French Emperor Napoleon III organized exhibitions where white ingots were displayed. He also introduced the fashion for aluminum cookware, which the richest industrialists, bankers and aristocrats could afford. Around the same time, traditional jewelry was made from aluminum in Japan. 
Thanks to technological progress, from 1852 to 1902 the price of aluminum fell from $1200 to $1 per kilogram. In the Russian Empire in 1852, 2200 rubles were given per kilogram of metal, in 1890 – 9,5 rubles, and in 1900 – only 1 ruble. In the 20th century, aluminum utensils were already considered the cheapest and were made for the army and government institutions, including correctional institutions. Did you know that we have Telegram? Subscribe if you are a connoisseur of beautiful photos and interesting stories! Aluminum products today do not cause any surprise and are not considered particularly valuable. This metal is widely used in a variety of fields, from house construction to automobile and aircraft construction. However, just 170 years ago, aluminum was in short supply and cost almost twice as much as gold. I propose to understand the reasons for the sky-high prices for aluminum in the 19th century, and at the same time learn about the history of its subsequent depreciation. 
Aluminum as a precious metal
The “recipe” for producing aluminum was discovered in the first half of the 1800s. At that time, this metal was so rare that it was considered precious, even though it has increased anti-corrosion properties, but still rusts. At the same time, aluminum is found everywhere in clays and sedimentary rocks. It is the most common metal in the earth’s crust and makes up 8% of its mass. In the mid-1850s, annual U.S. aluminum production was less than 93 kilograms and gold production was more than 90 tons per year. Hence the unusual pricing by modern standards: in 1852, a kilogram of aluminum was valued at $1200, and a kilogram of gold was valued at $600. 
Insignificant production volumes and the highest price mean that very few people could afford aluminum products. For example, Napoleon III had a set of aluminum cutlery that was served only to the most honored guests. The Danish monarch Frederick VII’s general’s helmet was made of aluminum, which also quite clearly reflects the attitude towards this metal in those days. Aluminum was also used on the top of the Washington Monument in the 1880s. 
What is the reason for the high price
The high price was due to the fact that aluminum does not occur in nature in its pure form, unlike silver and gold. Aluminum ores such as alum and bauxite are extremely common. According to the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, alum (potassium aluminum sulfate KA1(SO4)2·12Н2О) was known to Herodotus in 5 BC, but metallic aluminum was obtained directly only at the beginning of the 19th century. Before this, no one had been able to decompose bauxite or alum into its elemental components due to the significant reactivity of aluminum and the high melting point of all its ores. 
Aluminum was first obtained by the Danish chemist H.K. Oersted in 1825 from anhydrous aluminum chloride using potassium amalgam under high heat. The technology discovered by the Dane was not a reliable way to produce aluminum, but 2 years later it was refined by the German F. Wöhler, who replaced the amalgam with pure metallic potassium. Both of these methods made it possible to obtain aluminum in some small quantities, sufficient for laboratory research or for the production of the most luxurious jewelry, but nothing more. The French physical chemist Sainte-Clair Deville in 1854 was able to reduce the costs of aluminum production by an order of magnitude by replacing potassium with sodium metal. Immediately after this, jewelry and dentures began to be made from aluminum, which were already cheaper than gold, but comparable in price to silver. 
Dramatic changes in this industry occurred in 1886. At this time, American and French scientists independently developed a method for extracting aluminum from bauxite using electrolysis, which is now called the Hall-Heroult process. It involved a lot of energy consumption, fortunately, by that time hydroelectric power stations were already being built in full swing. In 1888, a kilogram of aluminum cost $6, and by 1893 the price had dropped to $2. As a result, consumer goods began to be made from this metal at the beginning of the 20th century.
