美铝的故事

19世纪80年代中期，铝是半贵重金属，比银还稀有。1884年，美国铝的总产量是125 磅。
在俄亥俄州，有一个叫查尔斯.霍尔的男孩，他从十二岁时起就着迷矿石实验。大学毕业后，霍尔在自己简陋的实验室里学会了如何制氧化铝。1886年一个寒冷的二月天里，霍尔在自制的石墨坩埚里注满了含氧化铝的冰晶石液，用电流穿过液体，液体变成一大块凝固体，待其冷却后，霍尔敲碎凝固体，几小块纯铝出现在眼前。

霍尔成立了匹兹堡提炼公司并建了一个小工厂。1888年，他和他第一个员工使用霍尔技术，生产出了第一块商业用铝。为了向生产商推介这种新材料，他们又制造了铝茶壶等几样加工产品。
与此同时，霍尔不断改进制造程序并开发合金，从1888年到1893年，他设法将铝锭的价格从每磅4.86美元降到78美分。公司的业务逐步扩大，不久铝产品就包括了烹调器具、铝箔、电线和电缆、汽车车身、以及莱特兄弟在第一次飞行时所用发动机的部件。

1907年，公司已拥有在阿肯色州的铝矾土矿、在伊利诺依州的精炼厂以及在纽约和加拿大的三家电解铝厂，公司名称改为“美国铝业公司”。随着公司的全球化发展，名称最终改为今天众所周知的“美铝公司”.

最近数十年来，铝工业飞速发展，竞争激烈。美铝扩展技术基础、完善制造程序、降低成本、开拓产品种类、市场和全球业务，并在自然资源方面建立一个前所未有的的世界基地。
二十一世纪到来之前，美铝已通过内部成长、全球合作、以及在欧洲和美国的重大收购显著地扩大其在全球的地位。
铝更成为制造轻便包装、 新一代飞机、汽车及数以千计现代产品的首选材料；因为铝，这些产品更坚固、更安全、更轻巧、更少耗能、更易回收。
从诞生到今天，美铝，一直处于世界领先的地位。

Alcoa’s history
In the mid-1880s, aluminum was a semi-precious metal, scarcer than silver. Total U.S. production in 1884 was 125 pounds.

At Oberlin College in Ohio, one of students, Charles Martin Hall, had been experimenting with minerals since he was 12 years old. After graduation, he learned how to make aluminum oxide—alumina—and he fashioned his own carbon crucible. On a cold February day in 1886, he filled the crucible with a cryolite bath containing alumina and passed an electric current through it. The result was a congealed mass which he allowed to cool, then shattered with a hammer. And there were several small pellets of pure aluminum.

Hall formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company and built a small plant. In 1888, Hall and his first employee produced the first commercial aluminum using Hall’s technology. To show the way to the costumer, they began to make a few fabricated products, starting with an aluminum teakettle.

Meanwhile, Hall kept improving his process and developing alloys. He managed to reduce the price of aluminum ingot from $4.86 a pound in 1888 to 78 cents in 1893.Business grew, and aluminum products soon included cooking utensils, foil, electric wire and cable, auto bodies, and parts of the engine used in the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk.
By 1907, the company had grown to include bauxite mines in Arkansas, a refinery in Illinois, and three aluminum smelters in New York and Canada. The owners changed the company’s name to something more appropriate – Aluminum Company of America. Later, as the company became increasingly global, this changed to Alcoa Inc.
In recent decades, the industry has grown dramatically. As competition intensified, Alcoa responded by broadening its technological base; perfecting processes; lowering costs; expanding product lines, markets, and global operations; and developing an unprecedented worldwide base in natural resources.

In the six years leading up to the turn of the century, Alcoa significantly enlarged its global presence through internal growth, worldwide partnerships, and major acquisitions in Europe and the U.S., doubling its revenues and tripling its earnings.

Aluminum has become the material of choice for convenient packaging, for a new generation of aircraft and automobiles, and for thousands of modern products that can now be made stronger, safer, lighter, less energy-intensive, and more recyclable.

Everything has changed except this: From the first day to the present day, Alcoa has remained the world’s leading aluminum company