INDUSTRIAL ELECTROLYSIS
Fifty Years' Progress in Electrowinning and Electrorefining
A. C. Loonam ~
In 1902, when The Electrochemical Society was founded,
the word "electrometallurgy" was synonymous with electro-
plating to a great many people and at least one book on plat-
ing with that title was in circulation. However, wh~t may be
termed the "electrolytic metallurgical industry" was in a
state of great activity. Faraday's laws had been known for
more than sixty years; Lorenz had found that they apply to
fused salts as well as aqueous solutions; Davy, Bunsen, and
others had shown that practically any metal could be re-
r electrolytically under the proper conditions; and
large supplies of power were available from newly installed
:steam and hydroelectric plants. Indeed, the time might well
be termed a period of overoptimism as there were many who
thought that electrochemistry was the key to the solution
of all metallurgical problems. It is not surprising, therefore,
that men like Hoepfner, Botchers, Ashcroft, and engineers
of Siemens and Halske were busy devising processes for the
.extraction and recovery of all of the then conmmn metals
and that patents were being issued at high rates in the major
industrial countries. Some of these processes reached pilot
plant and even industrial scales of operation before they were
abandoned, and many very valuable details were disclosed
which were later incorporated in other and more successful
processes.
Furthermore, the industry had reached a position of con-
~iderable commercial importance. The Hall-Heroult process
was 14 years old and had produced 7450 long tons of alumi-
num in 1901; the Csstner sodium process was in operation
at Niagara Fails, in England, and on the Continent; and
electrolytic magnesium had ah'eady made its start in Ger-
many. The histories of these metals are discussed in other
articles.
Among the heavier nonferrous metals, the electrolytic re-
fining of copper was well established. Ulke (1) listed ten
refineries operating in the United States in 1902 with an
annual total capacity of 339,450 short tons, and 23 in Europe
with a capacity of about 46,000 short tons. It is of interest
to note that, even at that time, eight of the American plants
and 19 of the others used the "multiple" electrode arrange-
ment, and that six of the American plants are still in opera-
tion. The Hoepfner electrolytic zinc process using a chloride
electrolyte was operating in a plant at Winnington, England,
which produced 1663 long tons of metal in 1901, and in two
other plants on the Continent. The Moebius and the Bal-
bach-Thum processes were in use for the parting of gold and
silver, and gold was being refined commercially by the Wohl-
will process.
The fifty )'ears since 1902 have been a period of great ex-
pansion for the industry. Some processes are still in use on a
larger scale, and new ones have been born and attained great
importance. Considering the individual processes, the re-
fining of copper has kept pace with the demand for that metal.
There are now nine refineries in the United States with a
Deutsch and Loonam, New York, New York.
295C
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total capacity of 1,700,000 short tons a year. The latest, that
of the Kennecott Copper Corporation at Garfield, Utah, went
into operation in June 1950, and has a capacity of 144,000
tons a year and can be readily expanded to 192,000 tons (2).
The electrolyte contains 40 g/1 Cu and 200 g/1 H2SO4, current
density is 16 amp/ft 2, and the cathodes are melted in electric
furnaces.
The expansion of the industry has not been confined to the
United States (3). Large modern refineries have been built
in recent )-ears in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Finland,
Russia, Northern Rhodesia (4), Austraha, and other coun-
tries. The two Canadian plants at Copper Cliff, Ontario, and
Montreal East, Quebec, have a total capacity of over 230,000
tons a year. The Northern Rhodesian plant is unusual in that
it was built to eliminate bisnmth from the copper, which does
not contain sufficient precious metals to pay for its refining.
Electrolytic refining has also become important in the treat-
ment of secondary copper. Nearly 200,000 tons were recov-
ered in the United States by this method in 1949. Most of
this probably came from scrap treated at the primary re-
fineries, but there is at least one electrolytic refinery in the
United States operating exclusively on secondary metal.
The process is still basically the same as it was fifty years
ago, but improvements have increased its efficiency and re-
duced costs. Adoption of a high acid electrolyte in the early
1920's reduced the cell voltage and therefore the power con-
sumption (5), while direct casting of anodes at the smelter
eliminated a melting and recasting operation.
E]ectrowinning of copper was not practiced in 1902, al-
though the basic principles were known. The first large in-
stallation of this type was at Chuquicamata, Chile, to treat
the oxidized ores of the huge copper deposit at that point.
The process was worked out in a pilot plant at Perth Amboy,
New Jersey, and operation of the full-scale plant started in
1915 (6). The ore is leached by percolation in large vats with
spent electrolyte containing free Ho.S04. The strong solution
is treated to remove C1 as CuC1 by treatment with "cement"
copper, and electrolyzed in cells with insoluble anodes and
copper cathodes (7). Because of nitrates and chlorides in the
ore, it was originally planned to use magnetite anodes, but
importation fi'om Germany was stopped by World War I
and Duriron anodes were substituted. These were later re-
placed by the "Chilex" copper silicide anode and ultimately
by antimonial lead as the nitrate content of the ore decreased
with depth.
Expanded several times, this plant reached a peak output
of 243,565 tons in 1947, a figure exceeded among electro-
winning plants only by the aluminum plant at Arvida,
Quebec.
Subsequently, similar plants were built to treat oxidized
copper ores at Ajo and Inspiration, Arizona, Potrerillos,
Chile, and at Jadotville-Shituru in the Belgian Congo (8).
The Ajo plant used S02 in solution as an anodic depolarizer;
Inspiration maintains a concentration of ferric iron in the
 296C JOURNAL OF THE
electrolyte which increases the solvent action on the sulfides
in the ore, but does not seriously reduce current efficiency
even in the absence of a diaphragm; Potrerillos used a solu-
tion purification similar to that used in zinc plants prior to
electrolysis; and the Jadotville plant leaches by agitation.
This process may have seen its best days. The Ajo plant
was shut down in the mid 1920's because of exhaustion of the
oxidized ores, that at Potrerillos was shut down recently for
the same reason, while at Chuquicamata a flotation plant
and a smelter are being installed to take over as the oxidized
ores become depleted. On the other hand, Inspiration pro-
duced 39,125 tons of copper in 1951, and the Jadotville-
Shituru plant is being expanded to a total capacity of 100,000
tons a year.
I t is generally supposed that electrolytic zinc from sulfate
solutions is a product of World War I, but experiments were
under way at Bully Hill, California, and at Trail, British
Columbia, before that war broke out (9). The stimulus was
probably the treatment of complex lead-zinc ores, since selec-
tive flotation was practically an unknown art at the time ; but
there is no question but that the demand of the Allies for high
grade zinc for cartridge brass accelerated development of the
process which went into commercial operation in a 100-ton
a day plant at Great Falls, Montana, and a 60-ton plant at
Trail about the year 1916.
The end of the war caused a sharp reduction in the demand
for high grade metal and it became necessary at times actually
to add impurities to the electrolytic product and sell it as
Prime Western grade to avoid loss of the premium on the
purer product. However, the development of zinc-base die
casting alloys by the New Jersey Zinc Company and their
adoption by the automobile industry soon supplied the needed
markets for high grade metal.
The subsequent expansion of the industry was rapid. It
now accounts for about 45 per cent of the world production
of primary slab zinc, including all of that of Canada, Aus-
tralia, Norway, and Northern Rhodesia, and 40 per cent of
that of the United States. There are now at least 26 plants
in the world with a total capacity of about 1,100,000 short
tons a year (10). They are distributed among 13 countries
and there is at least one on every continent. The latest plant
to go into operation, that of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation
in Peru, was expected to reach its rated capacity of 35 tons
a day in the second quarter of this ),ear.
There are five plants in the United States with a total of
3370 cells as of December 31, 1949 and a combined capacity
of 938 tons a day. The newest is that of the American Smelt-
ing and Refining Company at Corpus Christi, Texas (11),
with a capacity of 82 tons a day, which is soon to be increased
to about 150 tons to treat zinc oxide fume from lead blast
furnace slags. The current density is 60 amp,/ft2; the anode
is the Tainton silver-lead alloy; and all of the product is
Special High Grade, 99.99 per cent Zn.
Canada has two plants, at Trail, British Columbia, and
Flirt Flon, Manitoba, with a combined capacity of 600 tons
a day. In December 1950, the Consolidated Mining and
Smelting Company announced plans to increase the capacity
of the Trail plant by about 70 tons a day.
The process remains basically the same as it was at the
start, but there have been significant improvements in detail.
Flash roasting, improved leaching cycles, more effective solu-
tion purification, the Tainton silver-lead anode, the mercury
are rectifier, and casting wheels have offset rising costs to
some extent and have led to the production of higher purity
metal. A large proportion of the output is now Special High
Grade.
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ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY November 1952"
In the early 1920's, U. C. Tainton developed a modified
process, using a current density of 100 a m p / f t 2 and a strongly
acid electrolyte operating at a high temperature, which was
installed in 1928 at the plant of the Sullivan Mining Com-
pan3" at Kellogg, Idaho, where it is still in operation. Subse-
quently, a second plant was built at East St. Louis for the
Evans-Wallower Zinc Company (12), but was later shut
down; and when it was taken over and rehabilitated by the
American Zinc Company about ten years ago, the more ortho-
dox current density of 30 a m p / f t 2 was adopted.
To date, the electrolytic zinc process has stood up well
against competition. The New Jersey Zinc Company's con-
tinuous vertical retort-fractional distillation process, and the
St. Joseph Lead Company's eleetrothermie process, both of
which can produce high grade metal, have not seriously
affected its growth. The new Sterling eleetrothermie process,
recently announced by the New Jersey Zinc Company, may
provide stronger competition as the Cerro de Paseo Corpora-
tion has postponed expansion of its electrolytic plant pending
the results of an investigation of this process.
An interesting application of electrolytic zinc developed in
the 1930's is the Tainton or "Bethanizing" process for elee-
trogalvanizing of steel wire at the Sparrows Point, Maryland,
plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company. Leaching of roasted
zinc concentrates with spent sulfate electrolyte and purifica-
tion of solutions are carried out as usual, but the cathodes in
the electrolytic cells are moving steel wires upon which the
zinc is deposited. The product is considered superior to wire
produced by the hot-dip process.
Just about the time The Electrochemical Society was
founded, an electrolytic process for the refining of lead, de-
veloped by Anson G. Betts and using a solution of lead fluo-
silicate as the electrolyte, was built at Trail, British Columbia
(13). Subsequently, plants were built at Omaha, Nebraska,
East Chicago, Indiana, and in other parts of the world. The
chief value of this process is its ability to remove bismuth.
The development of the Betterton process for the removal of
bismuth by addition of calcium and magnesium to molten
lead led to the closing of the Omaha plant, but those at Trail
and East Chicago, with capacities of 170,000 and 42,000 tons
a >-ear, respectively, are still in operation. The latest plant,
at Oroya, Peru, had a capacity of about 44,000 tons a year
in 1945, but plans for expansion by converting part of a cop-
per refinery were announced in 1951. The electrolyte contains
80 grams of lead and 74 grams of free fluosilicic acid per liter,
the current density is 17.7 a m p / f t 2, and the cell voltage 0.4
to 0.6 (14). A recent paper (15) describes a refinery near
Milan, Italy, with a capacity of 18 tons a day which uses a
solution of lead sulfamate as the electrolyte.
The major proportion of the Canadian nickel output is
refined eleetrolytically at two plants located at Port Col-
borne, Ontario, and at Kristiansand, Norway. Both use
diaphragm cells from which the anolyte is withdrawn, treated
to remove copper and iron, and returned to the cathode com-
partments. The Port Colborne process is relatively simple,
as the major separation of copper and nickel is accomplished
during concentrating and smelting at Copper Cliff, but, at
Kristiansand, electrolysis is a major step in the separate re-
covery of copper and nickel h'om matte by a modified Hyb-
nette process. Electrolytic copper is also produced at this
plant.
The Port Colborne plant has recently changed over from
a sulfate to a sulfate-chloride electrolyte to secure increased
conductivity and lower cell voltage or greater capacity. I t
would be of interest to find o~t whether the new method of
 Vol. 99, No. 1l FIFTY YEARS OF INDUSTIIIAL
separation of copper and nickel now in operation at Copper
Cliff has had any effect on the operation of this refinery.
The new hydrometallurgical process recently announced
1)3- tile ('heroical Construction Company (16) for the re-
covery of copI)er, nickel, and cobalt from complex ores may
provide severe competition for' electrolytic methods. I t is
now being installed in three plants which otherwise might
have used the other.
Cadmium is a relatively valuable by-product of many lead
and zinc plants. I t is recovered from flue dusts or fron~ the
zinc dust precipitate in electrolytic zinc plants by wet meth-
ods, the final step of which is precipitation of the cadmium
as a sponge on zinc slabs. In general, this sponge is refined
in tile pyrometallurgical plants by briquetting and distillation,
9rod in the electrolytic zinc plants by dissolving in acid zinc
cadmium sulfate solution, followed by electrolysis with lead
anodes and aluminum cathodes. At Corpus Christi, Texas
(11), the strong and spent electrolytes contain 200 and 100
grams of cadmium per liter, respectively; the current density
is 10 a m p / f t ~, and the cell voltage about 2.5. Probably be-
tween 40 and 50 per cent of the 11,000,000 lb produced
annually in the world is recovered by electrolytic methods.
One of the most interesting developments of recent years,
scientifically and practically, is the production of electrolytic
manganese. This metal is considerably more electropositive
than zinc; its deposition from aqueous solutions at commer-
cial cmTent etticiencies is therefore a real achievement.
Furthermore, since there is no other coInmercial method for
preparing high-purity manganese, the process makes avail-
able to industry what is practically a new metal.
Worked out on a laboratory and pilot plant scale in the
early 1930's by Shelton and his coworkers at the U. S. Bureau
of Mines, the process was brought to full scale by the Electro
Manganese Corporation at its plant at Knoxville, Tennessee,
which began operation in 1939, and, after several expansions,
now has a capacity of 3600 short tons a year.
The process is similar to electrolytic zinc but with important
differences (17). Since manganese occurs in nature chiefly
as the higher oxides, the ores or concentrates nmst first be
reduced to the strongly basic MnO prior to leaching. The
electrolyte is a solution of manganous and ammonium sul-
fates. Solution purification is even more stringent than with
zinc. Electrolysis is carried out in diaphragm cells using lead
anodes containing small amounts of cobalt, antimony, and
tin and stainless steel cathodes fi'om which the manganese,
which deposits in tim brittle alpha modification, is hroken
off by flexing and hammering. The product is better th'm
99.9 per cent pure. Cell voltage is 5.0 to 5.3, cathode current
density 40 to 50 amp/f) 2, and current efficiency 60 to 65 per
cent. With the lead alloy anodes, only 2.5 per cent of tile
manganese fed to the plant is oxidized to MnO~.
I t was announced early in 1952 that tile capacity of the
Knoxville plant is to be doubled to 7200 tons a year and th'~t
the Electro Metallm'gical Company will build a plant at
Marietta, Ohio, with a capacity of 6,000 tons a year.
Electrolytic cobalt is produced at the )'ate of 200 to 300 tons
per month at the Jadotville-Shituru plant of the Union Min-
iere du Haut Katang't in tile Belgian Congo as a co-product
in the electrowinning of copper (18). The cobalt builds up
to about 6 to 7 g/1 in the circulating'leach-electrolyte, f)'om
which it is recovered as fairly pure cobalt hydroxide by a
combination of lime precipitation, electrolysis, and cementa-
tion on metallic cobalt. The cobalt electrolyte contains about
100 g/l of cobalt hydroxide in suspension to keep it neutral.
The principal impurity in the cathode cobalt is 3 to 5 per
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ELECTI/OLYSIS 297C
cent zinc, which is volatilized when the metal is melted in
electric furnaces.
It is probable that there are other plants producing elec-
trolytic cobalt. The Falcoubridge Nikkelverk was expected
to begin production froln Canadian coplrer-nickel matte at
its Kristiansand, Norway, refinery in 195l, and the United
States Economic Cooperation Administration made a grant
of $550,000 in 1950 to the Rhokana Corporation for a plant
to produce it from a Northern Rhodesian concentrate (19).
It has been known for many years that metallic chromium
can be deposited fi'om chromic acid solutions containing small
amounts of chromic salts. This process has been applied on
a laboratory scale to produce small quantities of metallic
chromium and has also been widely adopted for electroplating
of this metal. However, this type of bath is not suitable for'
electrowinning or electrorefining as power yields are low be-
cause the chromium is deposited from the hexavalent state,
current efficiency is low, and cell voltage is high. In the last
five years or so, however, the U. S. Bureau of Mines has
shown that chromium can be deposited from the trivalent
state at current efficiencies well over 60 per cent (20). A dia-
phragm cell is used, current density is 80 amp/ft 2, cell volt-
age 4.8, and the catholyte is a solution of chromous, chromic,
and ammoniuln sulfates. I t was reported late in 1950 that
the Electro Metallurgical Company planned to study a modi-
fication of this process, presumably for treatment of ferro-
chrome at its M'trietta, Ohio, plant.
During World War I, the increased dem'md for tin and a
shortage of Straits metal due to lack of shipping induced the
American Smelting and Refining Company to construct and
operate a smelter for Bolivian concentrates at Perth Amboy,
New Jersey. The final step in the process was electrolytic
refining (21). At first a stannous fluosilicate electrolyte was
used, but this was later replaced by a sulfate-aromatic sulfo-
nate solution. The plant reached a capacity of 1500 short tons
a month, but was shut down a few years after the war when
the supply of Straits tin again became normal.
Electrolytic parting of gold and silver' in Dore bullion
continues to expand. The tendency in recent years has been
to favor the Moebius process, which uses vertical electrodes
and sheet silver cathodes over the Balbach-Thum process
with its horizontal electrodes and graphite cathodes placed
at the bottom of the cells. Both use a weak solution of silver
ifitrate acidifed with nitric acid as the electrolyte and enclose
the anodes in cloth bags to catch the slimes which contain
the gold and any platinum metals. In a modification of the
Moebius process used by the Cerro de Pasco Corporation
(14), the electrolyte is an almost neutral solution of silver and
cupric nitrates, current density is 12 a m p / f t 2, and the alumi-
num cathodes are stripped every 48 hours.
The Wohhvill process for' refining of gold is also in a healthy
state. An improvement introduced about 1910, the super-
imposition of an alternating current on the direct current,
nfinimizes the tendency of silver chloride to form an im-
pervious film on the anode. At the plant of the International
Nickel Company (22), Copper Cliff, Ontario, the electrolyte
contains 9(~100 g/1 gold and 100 g/] free hydrochloric acid,
current density is 100 amp/ft 2, and the cell voltage 2.0.
Apparently no alternating cm'rent is used, presumably be-
cause tile impure gold, recovered from the slimes of Balbach-
Thum ('ells, does not contain enough silver to require it.
Among the minor metals, bismuth was being refined elec-
trolytically in Balb'tch-Thum cells using a BiC13-HCI electro-
lyre at the Omah% Nebraska, refinery of the American
Smelting and Refining Company in 1927, but it is not known
whether the process in still in operation.
 298C JOURNAL OF THE ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY November 1952

Beryllium is being made by electrolysis of a fused beryllium Hum and magnesium, the electrolytic metallurgical industry
chloride-alkali chloride bath. The ox3~uoride process devel- has enjoyed a very healthy growth in the last fifty years, has
oped by Siemens and Halske in the 1920's has been aban- rosy prospects for expansion in the output of its present
doned because of the toxicity of the vapors given off. products and the development of new ones, and can pride
Before World War II, the United States' supply of metallic itself on producing quality products on a quantity basis. It
calcium came from France, where it was made from the fused is a matter of special pride to the Society that many of the
chloride by the "contact electrode" method (23). In 1939, men who were responsible for this progress were members
the Union Carbide and Carbon Company started produc- of the Society and that some of them, Lawrence Addicks,
tion by the same method at a plant at Sault Ste. Marie, Colin G. Fink, Anton Gronningsater, John W. Marden, "rod
Michigan (24), which is still in operation. The Pidgeon S. Skowronski, to name only a few, ate still on its rolls.
aluminothermic process is providing severe competition for
the electrolytic method and would probably be favored if REFERENCES
demand for this metal should increase.
Crude metallic cerium or "mischmetal" is being produced Unless otherwise noted, all references are to the TRANSAC-
in the United States by electrolysis of fused alkali chloride- TIONS or the JOURNAL of The Electrochemical Society.
rare earth chloride mixtures (25) in plants at Niagara Falls, 1. T. ULKE, 3, 219 (1903).
New York, and Edgewater, New Jersey. The improved high 2. S. HUGHES, Eng. Mining J., 159., No. 6, 72 (June, 1951).
temperature properties of magnesium-rare earth metal al- 3. ~I. F. HEBERLEIN, 77, 119 (1940).
loys and other new applications may increase the demand 4. A. E. WHEELER AND H. Y. EAGLE, 74, 375 (1938).
for this metal in the near future. 5. S. SKOWRONSKI,51, 139 (1927).
Electrolytic indium (26) is probably produced by the 6. E. A. CAPPELEN SMITH, 9.5, 193 0914).
Anaconda Copper Mining Company at its Montana zinc 7. C. W. EICHRODT, 45, 381 (1924).
8. H. Y. EAGLE, 45, 365 (1924).
plants. Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company is using
9. O. C. RALSTON, 51, 129 (1927).
an electrolytic process at Trail, British Columbia. 10. A. A. CENTER, Trans. AIME, 159, 182 (1944).
There are plants for producing metallic lithium from the 11. G. H. CUNNINGHAM AND A. C. JEPHSON, Trans. AIME,
fused chloride at Maywood, New Jersey, and Minneapolis, 159, 194 (1944).
Minnesota. The latter, constructed within the last five years, 12. U. C. TAINTON AND D. BOSQUI, 57, 241 (1930).
is a modern one and is now in process of expansion. A plant 13. J. J. FINGLAND,57, 177 (1930).
in Long Island City, New York, with four 8000-10,000 amp 14. W. W. FOWLER, J. W. HANLEY, AND I. L. BARKER, Mining
cells operated during World War I[, but was shut down and Met., 26, 555 (1945).
shortly thereafter. Lithium has interesting possibilities as an 15. R. PIONTELLI, 94, 106, 377 (1946).
16. ANON, J. Metals, 4, 589 (June, 1952).
alloying metal. A 90 Mg-10 Li alloy has a body centered cubic
17. C. L. MANTELL, 94, 232 (1948).
structure and is nmre malleable, although not so strong as 18. E. B. SENGIER, Eng. Mining J., 152, 92 (Dec., 1951).
hexagonal magnesium alloys. 19. ANON., J. Metals, 191, 17 (1951).
I t is a well-known fact that the first large supply of ura- 20. R. R. LLOYD,J. B. ROSENBAUM,V. E. HOMME, L. P. DAVIS,
nium of sufficient purity to be used in nuclear reactors was AND C. C. MERRILL, 97, 227 (1950).
made by a process developed by J. W. Marden and his asso- 21. J. R. STACK,45, 441 (1924).
ciates at the Westinghouse Lamp Works, Bloomfield, New 22. F. BENARD, Trans. AIME, 159, 70 (1944).
23. P. H. BRACE, 37, 465 (1920).
Jersey, namely the electrolysis of a solution of KUF5 in a
24. A. B. KINZEL, Mining and Met., 9.2, 488 (1941).
fused mixture of calcium and sodium chlorides, using a 25. A. HIRSCH, 20, 57 (1911).
graphite anode and a molybdenum cathode (27). 26. L. R. WZSTRROOK, 57, 289 (1930).
Summing up, it is very evident that, even omitting alumi- 27. J. W. MARDEN, 66, 39 (1934).

A Half Century of Aluminum Developments

J u n i u s D. E d w a r d s ~

The aluminum industry in America was founded upon
the discoveries of Charles Martin Hall, namely, that sub-
stantial amounts of alumina could be dissolved in molten
cryolite, and that the oxide of aluminum in this solution
could be reduced electrolytically to metallic aluminum with-
out decomposition of the molten cryolite. These discoveries,
made in 1886, led to the formation of the Pittsburgh Reduc-
tion Company, and the first electrolytic production of alumi-
num started in Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving Day, 1888. The
small company had made substantial progress and had re-
duction works at Niagara Falls, New York, and Shawinigan
Falls, Quebec, when The American Electrochemical Society
'Aluminum Research Laboratories, Aluminum Company
of America, New Kensington, Pennsylvania.
was founded in 1902. Charles Martin Hall was a charter
member of this Society.
Just prior to Hall's invention, aluminum produced by
chemical reduction of almninum chloride with metallic so-
dium was selling for about $8 per lb. The Pittsburgh Reduc-
tion Company tried to sell its first electrolytically-reduced
aluminum at $5 per lb but found few customers. Successive
price reductions resulted in a widening of markets so that,
by 1902, the annual production at the Niagara and Shawini-
gan Falls Works had increased to 7,478,000 lb. In 1902 the
price of ingot aluminum, in 100 lb lots, was 35 cents per lb,
and 33 cents in lots of 2000 tb or over. By this time it had
become apparent that the future of the industry lay in secur-
ing more extensive markets. Many potential customers needed
stronger alloys than those available and alloys with better

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