1. Aluminium productionThe Hall-Hérault process for the production of aluminium by the electrolysis of alumina dissolved in molten cryolite was discovered independently in the 1880s by the American Charles Hall and the Frenchman Paul Hérault. Before then the price of aluminium had been prohibitively expensive as it had to be obtained by the chemical (rather than electrolytic) reduction of aluminium oxide. Even modern...