Charles Martin Hall, developed a method to economise the production of aluminium

December 6, 1863, Thomson (Ohio, United States of America) - December 27, 1914, Daytona (Florida, United States of America)

In 1885, he graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio.

On 23 February 1886, the inventor and engineer produced the first samples of aluminium using a method he had developed to make aluminium cheaper to produce. This made aluminium the first metal to achieve widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron.

Hall made most of his instruments and prepared his chemicals, although he also had the help of his older sister Julia.

His basic invention involved passing an electric current through a bath of alumina dissolved in cryolite; the newly formed aluminium accumulated at the bottom of the retort.

On 9 July 1886, Hall applied for his first patent. This process was also discovered almost at the same time by the Frenchman Paul Héroult and has come to be known as the ‘Hall-Héroult process’. It succeeded in lowering the price of aluminium by a factor of 200, making it affordable for many practical uses.

When he could not get funding to continue his research, he moved to Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) where he contacted one of the best-known metallurgists of the time, Alfred Hunt. The two founded the Reduction Company of Pittsburgh, which opened the first large-scale aluminium production plants. Years later it became the Aluminum Company of America and then Alco. Hall was a major shareholder and became wealthy.

In 1900, annual aluminium production reached about 8,000 tons, and, today, more aluminium is produced than all other non-ferrous metals combined.

In 1911, he won the Perkin Medal, the highest award for American industrial chemistry.

In 1997, the American Chemical Society designated the production of aluminium by electrochemistry discovered by Charles Martin Hall as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.

For the rest of his life, he continued his research and obtained 22 US patents, mostly on aluminium production.

He also served on the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College and was president of Alco until he died in 1914.

Hall has been one of Oberlin College's most important benefactors and has an aluminium statue that, because of its light weight, students joke about moving it around. As a result, it is now attached to a large granite slab and located more permanently on the first floor of Oberlin's new science centre, where students continue to decorate it at Christmas and other occasions.