Portrait of Charles Martin Hall

People/scientist, engineer

Charles Martin Hall

Charles Martin Hall (1863–1914), scientist, engineer, from United States. Linked to aluminium.

The lucky break

Patented an electrolytic method of making aluminium in America in 1886-87, independently of Paul Heroult in France and England.1,2,3

Legacy

The 1911 Britannica says that by the end of the 19th century the Heroult-Hall method alone was used to make aluminium worldwide. A Hall-process plant was built at Niagara Falls in 1894.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 23 February 1886Hall and Heroult invent electrolytic aluminium smelting4
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Where next

People

Rival ofPaul HeroultTwo men on two continents patented the same aluminium process in the same years.1

Events

DiscoveredHall and Heroult invent electrolytic aluminium smeltingCharles Martin Hall is part of this story: Hall and Heroult invent electrolytic aluminium smelting.4

Sources

  1. Aluminium Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1911 (public-domain text on Wikisource)
  2. Charles Martin Hall Wikidata
  3. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons
  4. Aluminum: common metal, uncommon past Science History Institute

Pictures on this page: PSM V73 D317 Charles Martin Hall.png, Unknown author (Public domain); PaulHeroult.jpg, not recorded on the file page (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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