How Aluminium Is Made: The Metal That Was Once More Precious Than Gold

Aluminium is the most common metal in the Earth's crust — yet in the 1850s it was more precious than gold. Napoleon III is said to have served his most honoured guests on aluminium plates. Follow it from red bauxite mines and a refinery that grows white crystals like snow, to a smelter hall more than a kilometre long where hundreds of thousands of amperes tear the metal free, then on to rolling mills, extrusion presses and can lines making 2,000 cans a minute. And why can an empty can be back on the shelf in about 60 days? Industrial Giants takes you inside the world's mightiest factories and machines, told like a nature documentary. 🔔 Subscribe to Industrial Giants for new episodes. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 The Hidden Metal 00:28 More Precious Than Gold 00:51 The 1886 Discovery 01:14 Red Earth 01:31 The Refinery 01:47 White Crystals 02:09 Bauxite to Metal 02:21 The Smelter 02:41 Lightning in a Pot 03:00 Hungry for Power 03:22 The Pot Tenders 03:37 Tapping the Metal 03:51 The Casthouse 04:10 The Rolling Mill 04:31 Extrusion 04:46 The Can 05:03 A Skin Holding a Storm 05:18 Planes, Trains & Cars 05:38 Everywhere Around Us 05:49 Recycling Forever 06:12 Back on the Shelf 06:25 The Metal Born From Lightning ℹ️ About this video Visuals are AI-generated illustrations created for storytelling. Processes and figures are researched from industry sources (International Aluminium Institute, Aluminum Association and others); actual values vary between plants. #IndustrialGiants #HowItsMade #aluminiumformwork how aluminium is made, how aluminum is made, aluminium smelter, aluminum smelter, bauxite, alumina, hall heroult, aluminium can, rolling mill, extrusion, aluminium recycling, how it's made, mega factory, industrial documentary, engineering documentary, industrial giants,