Lucky “13” of the elements Fearless is looking at? Well…you be the judge.
Aluminum
Aluminum is a rather common metal, the most common one in
the earth’s crust, as a matter of fact.
Ah, but try finding it as a metal in nature. Probably not going to happen. Aluminum is simply too reactive on its
own. But you can find it in more than
250 different minerals. Despite its
reactivity, it does not easily ignite.
It has a long history, its being in evidence in ancient
Greece and Rome as an astringent (a “styptic” – an astringent used in treating
wounds). It would not be until the
mid-18th century that Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, a French
chemist and sometime political official, looked at “alum” (which is hydrated
potassium aluminum sulfate, but they didn’t know that at the time, it was just
this quartzy looking stuff) and decided to call it “alumine.”
Close…but not quite.
Sir Humphry Davy figured out that there was a metal in there and called
it “alumium.” Ooooh…almost. Davy took another shot at it, calling the
metal “aluminum,” but he didn’t get around to actually extracting the
metal. Friedrich Wöhler, a German chemist,
almost did it, but he thought he had potassium.
He tweaked his experimental processes a bit, and in 1827 he isolated
pure aluminum. Bet this would have gone much more quickly if Swedes were
involved.
But back to aluminum.
It is a very durable element, resistant to corrosion. It has no known function in biology, but it
does lend strength to metals with which it is alloyed, making it critical in
aerospace, transportation, and structural applications. In fact, it is among
the most practical of elements, finding its way into any number of applications
or products: packaging (cans or foil), automobiles, building construction,
utilities (light poles, sign posts), protection (casings for electronic equipment
and consumer products), heat sinks for electronic appliances, paints, musical
instruments (generally guitars), lighting, athletic equipment, fireworks, and
many more.
Oh, and here is an odd fact about aluminum. You find that in some countries (Great Britain,
for example) the element is spelled “aluminium,” with the extra “I” imparting
an extra syllable in pronunciation. There
is a reason for that. There is this
organization that serves as the authority on chemical nomenclature, the “International
Union of Pure and Applied Chmistry (IUPAC, for short).” After Davy proposed “aluminum” as the name
for the metal, IUPAC decided that “aluminum” needed to conform to the naming
conventions for elements, that they end in “ium.” So, “aluminum” became “aluminium,” which is
its official spelling to this day. It
was the Americans, being the rebellious sort they are, that changed the name
back, the American Chemical Society doing the deed back in 1925.
So, there it is. The
strange history of its name aside, a widely found element that is durable,
reactive if not readily ignitable, capable of lending strength to a wide
variety of metal alloys. It is not a
flashy element, but rather one found in any number of useful, everyday
applications and products. It is not unlike a hockey player who is sturdy,
durable, plays hard in the corners and along the boards (although seldom fights…perhaps
just one career fight, in fact). A
player who is a meat-and-potatoes sort who isn’t flashy, but can contribute at
both ends of the ice.
Aluminum (or “Aluminium”)… the “Joel Ward” of the elements
of the periodic table.
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