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E c o n o M i c s Alcoa celebrates 120 years of innovation Alcoa, the company that created the modern aluminium industry, marked its 120 th anniversary with the launch of a website (www. alcoa.com/history) celebrating the company’s progress since 1 October 1888, the day it was incorporated as The Pittsburgh Reduction Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The new website features interactive displays showing how Alcoa has been inventing the future since 1888. Since its founding day, Alcoa has grown from a spark of innovation to become the world’s largest aluminium company which today operates some 350 facilities in 34 countries around the world with some 97,000 employees. “Alcoa invented the modern aluminium industry and has been at the forefront of every major event in the industry for the past 120 years – from the first droplets of aluminium from Charles Martin Hall to helping new markets such as the aluminium can emerge”, said Alcoa Chairman Alain Belda. Highlights from the website include an interactive ‘time machine’ reviewing the key aspects of the company’s history, and an overview of how Alcoa has evolved to where its products are used in markets all over the world – from consumer electronics, green buildings, aerospace, oil and gas, ground transportation, packaging and more. First commercial process – 1886 The process of creating aluminium metal from alumina through electrolysis was discovered in parallel by two men: Alcoa founder Charles Martin Hall of Oberlin, Ohio, and Paul L. T. Héroult of France. Hall’s patent for the process prevailed in the US and survived numerous challenges. Though the HallHéroult process has been refined many times, its basic principles are still used today to produce nearly every ounce of aluminium smelted by aluminium producers worldwide. The process cut the price of aluminium dramatically and transformed it from a precious metal into a strategic material whose properties of strength, lightness and durability would open up a world of new engineering possibilities. Based on this discovery, a group of Pittsburgh entrepreneurs, including Hall, gathered to incorporate the company. Its original name, The Pittsburgh Reduction Company, was changed to the Aluminium Company of America in 1907, and then to Alcoa in 1999. Alcoa’s first employee, Arthur Vining Davis, worked with Hall to start production in a small plant in Pittsburgh‘s Strip District. Davis stayed with the company for 69 years, serving for 29 of those years as its first Chairman of the Board. The company’s earliest products were aluminium pots and pans. First use of sustainable power to make aluminium – 1893 Alcoa was the first aluminium company to harness sustainable hydropower to drive the smelting process with a plant built in Niagara Falls in 1893. Hydropower helped the company further drive down the price of aluminium. Today, hydropower is still a critical part of Alcoa’s strategy to maximise its sources of sustainable, clean energy. It powers Alcoa smelters from Tennessee and Washington in the US to Brazil, Canada and Iceland using renewable hydropower. First aluminium to fly – 1903 The Wright Brothers’ historic flight took off with an Alcoa aluminium crankcase. Its lightness helped tip the balance of power and weight that changed the world of transportation forever. Since that day, Alcoa has played a key role in nearly every major innovation in aerospace aluminium, including such milestones as one of the world’s first passenger planes, the Ford Trimotor; the first transatlantic flight in 1927; the overwhelming rollout of American aircraft aluminium capacity that helped turn the tide of World War II; the world’s first passenger jet, Boeing’s 707; and today’s latest breakthrough, the Airbus A380 super jumbo. Alcoa aluminium was first in space as well. Sputnik, the Russian satellite that shocked the world in 1957 and began the space race of the 1950s and 1960s, was built in a plant now owned and managed by Alcoa. And Alcoa alloys and propellants have helped make many American space milestones possible, from the first manned flight and the first moon landing to today’s Space Shuttle and International Space Station programmes. ‘The Laboratories’ – 1930 Alcoa was the first company to formalise and dedicate resources solely to the development of new aluminium technology and applications with the Alcoa aluminium helped building the Empire State Building in 1931 Lennart Karow 20 ALUMINIUM · 11/2008
E c o n o M i c s founding of the Aluminium Research Laboratory in New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1930. ‘The Laboratories’, as it was known, has been the world’s primary source of aluminium innovation in both metallurgy and production processes ever since. Alcoa research has produced nearly every aerospace alloy used in the 20 th century, plus advances in aluminium beverage can production, architectural materials, recycling and smelting technology. Architectural firsts Alcoa aluminium helped building the Empire State Building in 1931, the World Trade Center in 1973, and many other architectural landmarks. The original Alcoa Building in Pittsburgh, built in 1953, was a functional showroom of the principles of aluminiumintensive architectural design for the times. The use of aluminium throughout reduced the weight of the structure to provide substantial savings in the building’s steel frame. The company’s new corporate centre, built on Pittsburgh’s North Shore in 1998, is a showcase of aluminiumintensive ‘green’ building applications, from natural lighting, to recyclable materials and open office design. immediate market for the stronger, lighter, more aesthetic wheel. Commercial truckers still swear by their ‘Alcoas’ for durability, fuel efficiency and an unbeatable shine on the road. Today Alcoa’s DuraBright XBR technology makes it even easier to keep Alcoa wheels looking great without polishing. The aluminium wheel is just one part of the history of aluminium solutions for the automotive and transportation industry introduced by Alcoa. In 1994, Alcoa and Audi teamed up to introduce the A8model, the world’s first passenger car to use an allaluminium body and spaceframe design to provide strength, performance, safety and comfort at a level never before achieved. ■ WWW.BUSSCORP.COM All-aluminium cans – 1968 Alcoa teamed up with customer Pittsburgh Brewing to introduce the first easyopen beer can in 1962 and pioneered the technology for rapid production of aluminium cans in 1968. Aluminium quickly overtook steel as the preferred container in the USA. Along with the aluminium can, Alcoa introduced America’s first consumer can recycling programme, complete with recycling centres and television marketing. Today, aluminium’s environmental and cost advantages are moving to bottlestyle beverage packaging as well. In 2005, Pittsburgh Brewing once again made packaging history by introducing the first aluminium beer bottle in North America. The first aluminium wheel – 1948 Alcoa introduced the forged aluminium wheel in 1948 and created an The leading Mixing Technology for Anode Pastes For over 50 years BUSS Kneader Series KE and CP are the benchmark in reliable and economical compounding of anode pastes. Benefit from the expertise of the market leader. ALUMINIUM · 11/2008
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