Danish physicist and chemist · 1777–1851
Hans Christian Ørsted
Hans Christian Ørsted produced the first, impure aluminium in 1825. Five years earlier he had made a far more famous discovery: that an electric current moves a compass needle.
How Aluminium was found
Alumina was known to be the oxide of an unknown metal, but it was too stable to break down. Ørsted heated alumina with carbon and chlorine to make aluminium chloride, then reacted it with potassium amalgam. Distilling off the mercury left a lump of metal that looked like tin.
His sample was impure, and the method was hard to repeat. Friedrich Wöhler improved it in 1827 and produced cleaner aluminium powder. For decades afterward aluminium was more expensive than gold.
Life and career
Born 1777 · Died 1851
Ørsted was born in Rudkøbing, on the Danish island of Langeland, the son of a pharmacist. He studied in Copenhagen and became professor of physics there.
In 1820, during a lecture, he noticed a compass needle swing when he switched on a current, the first evidence linking electricity and magnetism. He founded what is now the Technical University of Denmark, and the unit of magnetic field strength, the oersted, is named after him.
Also known for
- Discovered electromagnetism in 1820
- Founded the Technical University of Denmark
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1825.