Charles Martin Hall
Charles Hall was an American chemist, inventor, metallurgist and philanthropist. While a student at Oberlin College, Hall was inspired by his professor's stories about his studies under Wöhler. He decided that his goal in life would be to discover an inexpensive way to make aluminum. Working in an improvised laboratory in a woodshed behind his parent's home in Oberlin, Ohio, Hall discovered the electrolytic process for extracting aluminum from Al2O. He was only 22 years old when he rushed into his professor's office and showed him a handful of aluminum buttons. Following this discovery Hall went on to found the company that eventually became Aluminum Company of America. He died a millionaire in 1914. The Aluminum Company of America still has the original aluminum buttons made by Hall, and refers to them as the "crown jewels." |
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