How Aluminium Is — Made Animation

A fine, snowy white powder called Alumina (aluminum oxide) [1, 6]. Act III: The Lightning Strike (The Hall-Héroult Process)

From red dirt to white powder, and from a lightning-bolt bath to a silver slab, the aluminum is now ready to be shaped into anything from a foil wrap to a jet engine. How Aluminium is made animation

A giant "vacuum" ladle siphons the liquid silver from the bottom of the pot [1]. It is whisked away to a furnace where it's purified and mixed with other metals to make it stronger [1, 6]. Finally, it is poured into molds to create massive blocks called , or rolled into thin sheets [1, 6]. A fine, snowy white powder called Alumina (aluminum

The electricity rips the oxygen away from the aluminum. The oxygen bonds with the carbon rods and floats away as CO2, while the pure, heavy molten aluminum sinks to the bottom of the vat [1, 6]. Act IV: The Final Form It is whisked away to a furnace where

Massive carbon rods (anodes) are lowered into the vat, and a colossal electric current—hundreds of thousands of amperes—is surged through the liquid [1, 6].

The crushed bauxite enters a high-pressure "pressure cooker" filled with hot caustic soda [1, 6].

The white powder is dissolved in a giant steel vat filled with molten cryolite (a mineral that helps it melt at a lower temperature) [1, 6].