Aluminum 101
A Brief History of Aluminum: From Luxury Metal to Global Commodity
Some metals have evolved over time from rarity to a commodity. This is definitely the case with aluminum, which was discovered in its metal form only in 1825, despite being the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, even more common than iron.
It was previously used in an unrefined form (alum) for dying fabrics and as a deodorant.
The difference with iron is that aluminum is extremely difficult to refine, requiring extremely high temperatures. As a result, it was initially more precious than gold and used only as a luxury metal for jewelry and cutlery.
Napoleon is reputed to have held a banquet where the most honored guests were given aluminum utensils while others made do with gold.
A man from Ohio, Charles Martin Hall, developed aluminum’s electrolytic extraction process in his family’s woodshed in 1886, patented the invention, and helped found the company that would later become Alcoa.
Source: Today In Science
Legend has it that Franck Jewett, who had been named professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Oberlin in 1880, passed around a lump of aluminum in class, stating that “any person who discovers a process by which aluminum can be made on a commercial scale will bless humanity and make a fortune for himself.”
This invention started the industrial-scale production of aluminum, quickly decreasing production costs.
In 1886, aluminum was costing $6/pound. In 1891, it had fallen to $1/pound. When a lightweight aluminum crankcase for their engine enabled the Wright Brothers to take their famous first flight in 1903, the metal was about $0.30 per pound.
Today’s price is barely above $1.15/pound, a remarkable continuous decrease in price throughout the 20th century, considering inflation over more than a hundred years.
How Aluminum Is Made: From Bauxite to Alumina to Metal
Processing bauxite uses electricity to remove the oxygen atom from aluminum oxide (also called alumina), producing pure aluminum metal through electrolysis.
Alumina itself (Al2O3) is produced from aluminum ore (called bauxite), which contains a mix of aluminum compounds like gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite, and diaspore (AlO(OH)), as well as other impurities and minerals. Two to three tons of bauxite are required to produce a ton of alumina.
Source: Mineral Auctions
Turning bauxite into alumina is a relatively simple process, called the Bayer Process, invented in 1887 by Carl Josef Bayer, and is still the method used today:
- Bauxite is crushed, then dissolved in caustic soda (NaOH).
- The mixture is refined to remove impurities.
- The remaining solution is put in a tank and made to precipitate.
- The final product is washed off and heated to remove the leftover caustic soda and water.
Global Aluminum Market Overview
Where Is Aluminum Produced? Top Global Producers
Aluminum, the most abundant metal element on Earth, is hardly a rare resource, with large deposits on every continent.
Source: US Geological Survey
However, as aluminum production is a very energy-intensive process requiring a lot of electricity, as well as massive and capital-intensive plants, its production is less evenly distributed.
China is by far the largest producer, responsible for almost 60% of global production in 2024. The other large producers are India, Russia, North America, and the Arab Gulf countries.
The largest producer per capita is Iceland, where abundant hydro and geothermal energy is used for aluminum production. Three aluminum smelters consume 80% of the country’s energy production.
Source: International Aluminum
By far, the largest energy source for aluminum production is hydropower, thanks to its low costs and high reliability/dependability, followed by coal for the same reasons. The high reliability is crucial, as crucibles for aluminum smelting must never cool down and solidify, which would destroy them.
Source: International Aluminum
Aluminum Demand Forecast and Key Drivers Through 2030
The largest demand for aluminum is also coming from China, with 60% of global demand, reflecting its massive industrial production, driving its hunger for the silvery metal. This is followed by the USA (7% of global demand), Germany (3%), Japan (3%), and India (2%).
Source: Industry Australia
Global aluminum demand is expected to grow by 40% by 2030, in large part driven by green energies, electrification, and demand for lightweight materials.
What Drives Aluminum Prices? Trends and Analysis
Aluminum prices tend to follow the overall health of the global economy, with recessions driving a dip in demand and overcapacity.
Prices have been overall high since 2021, but are currently lower than the latest spike in March 2022.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Saint-Louis
Local prices might also differ from global prices, depending on local supply and demand conditions. Beside overall global economic activity, the price of aluminum also fluctuates with the price of energy, which explains partially the high point it reached in 2008.
How Tariffs Impact the Aluminum Market
Aluminum production is a politically and geopolitically sensitive topic as a key industrial and strategic metal, including for aerospace applications. Recently, the second Trump administration launched a wave of 25% tariffs against all aluminum and steel imports.
The USA is a major aluminum importer, with most of its imported supply coming from Canada.
Source: Mining.com
This caused a split in local prices, with the price of aluminum declining in London and rising in the USA.
Source: Alcoa
China’s Dominance in Rare Earths and Aluminum Refining
It is well known that China is a major producer of rare earth elements (98% of global production), which gives it a decisive advantage in green energies, as well as makes it a key supplier for these metals required for advanced technologies, form missiles to semiconductors.
It is, however, less known that a key element of China’s control of this market is its strong presence in aluminum refining.
The Chinese government mandates by law that all aluminum refiners also purify rare earth elements contained in the bauxite and alumina ore, something not required for other aluminum producers.
So, while aluminum prices are the key driver of profits for aluminum smelters, it is possible that in the future, non-Chinese aluminum producers will be mobilized by their respective governments to reduce dependency on rare earth element imports and be treated as strategic assets.
How Aluminum Is Used: Key Applications Across Industries
Why Aluminum Is Preferred: Properties and Advantages
90.9 million tons of aluminum were produced in 2024, exceeding any other metal production except for iron.
Source: Visual Capitalist
Aluminum is almost always alloyed (mixed with other metals), which markedly improves its mechanical properties.
The main alloying agents for both wrought and cast aluminum are copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and silicon.
Special aluminum alloys can also be used for niche applications, and new aluminum alloys are being tested by scientists for making aluminum stronger or even more corrosion resistant.
Overall, aluminum is preferred to steel when the final product requires one or more of the following characteristics:
- Corrosion resistance.
- Lightweight but with strong structural integrity.
- Easier to machine into complex shapes.
- Higher thermal or electrical conductivity.
- The higher costs compared to steel are not a primary concern.
Source: Erect a Step
Aluminum in Transportation: Cars, Trains, and Marine Uses
Aluminum is widely used in the automotive industry, as well as for marine vessels, railway cars, bicycles, etc.
It performs well in these applications thanks to its strength combined with light weight, improving fuel efficiency.
Aluminum is also easy to machine and pressed into complex shapes, making it a good choice for automated assembly line and the trend in the automotive industry toward “gigapress”.
Source: HAOMEI
Aluminum in Aerospace and UV-Resistant Applications
While aluminum’s low weight is a primary reason for its use in aerospace applications, it is not the only determining factor. Resistance to corrosion makes it a key material in jet engines, especially nickel-aluminum alloys, also known as aircraft-grade aluminums.
Another key advantage of aluminum is its high resistance to degradation by UV light. For this reason, aluminum is also used, even in a thin foil, for any material that can be damaged by UVs.
Source: Thyssenkrupp
Industrial and Infrastructure Uses for Aluminum
Many infrastructures also require corrosion resistance to carry chemicals and other reactive compounds, especially pipes, vents, valves, pumps, etc.
This also makes aluminum an important material for processing equipment, tools, and other industrial machines.
Aluminum in Construction and Architecture
Aluminum is widely used in construction, especially for exposed materials like windows, doors, siding, sheathing, roofing, etc.
It is also a popular material for building greenhouses and any construction in a harsh climate or with regular exposure to water, where even stainless steel would ultimately start to rust.
Aluminum in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing
As 3D printing is mainly used for creating complex and lighter parts than traditional metal casting methods, it makes sense that aluminum is one of the primary metals used in 3D printing. Most are aluminum alloys with magnesium and/or silicon.
For example, Porsche 3D printed aluminum pistons for its flagship model, the GT2 RS.
Source: Voxel Matters
Many different methods can be used for 3D printing aluminum, including laser metal powder bed fusion (L-PBF), binder jetting, kinetic consolidation, and wire-based 3D printing.
Everyday Uses: Packaging, Foil, and Household Products
Aluminum foil, cans, oven trays and other food related products are omnipresent in the modern kitchen and supermarkets. This is because aluminum does not rust, resists high temperatures, is non-toxic, non-adsorptive, and splinter-proof.
For the same reason, the metal is commonly used in other cooking utensils like pots, as well as furniture, smartphone cases, etc.
Aluminum in Energy: Transmission Lines, Solar Frames, and More
As a highly conductive metal, aluminum is preferred to even copper for long-distance power transmission cables. Thanks to its lighter weight, aluminum allows for far fewer supporting pylons.
Source: Yi Fang Cables
This high electrical conductivity is also leveraged in the production of aluminum-based motors, generators, transformers, capacitors, etc.
Aluminum is also the primary metal used in the frame of solar panels, accounting for more than 85% of most solar photovoltaic components.
Sustainable Aluminum: Recycling, Renewables, and Green Tech
Decarbonizing Aluminum Production with Clean Energy
One primary concern of aluminum production is its large energy consumption. The majority of aluminum today is produced with carbon-neutral hydropower, but a significant portion is still powered by coal.
Replacing this coal-based aluminum production with nuclear or hydropower will be an important step in reducing global emissions.
As the process is primarily driven by electricity (electrolysis of alumina into aluminum) or easy-to-electrify heat (calcination of bauxite into alumina), this is an industrial process less difficult to make green than steel production.
However, having it rely exclusively on non-hydropower renewable energy is likely to take time for battery systems or other renewable energy sources to develop (like geothermal energy).
This is because aluminum smelting requires a 100% reliable and stable supply of power to prevent its electrolyzers from solidifying back and being permanently destroyed. So any aluminum smelter will only accept the most reliable power source, something that intermittent energy sources like wind and solar are unlikely to be able to deliver at scale in the next decade, but might later on with massive battery systems.
Aluminum Recycling: Infinite Potential and Energy Savings
Another way to make aluminum more sustainable is to use more recycling of aluminum product. In theory, aluminum is infinitely recyclable, contrary to plastics, for example, which tend to degrade with every recycling cycle.
75% of all aluminum ever produced is still in use today. Some countries are much ahead in this field, with 80% of U.S. production today is in making recycled (or secondary) aluminum, up from 20-30% recycled production in the 1980s.
Aluminum is also more sustainable in general. For example, aluminum beverage cans contain far more recycled content than glass or plastic and save huge amounts of energy in transportation and refrigeration.
The input resources it uses, bauxite and caustic soda, are also available in almost unlimited amounts.
Future of Aluminum: Nanotech, Superalloys, and Next-Gen Batteries
While industrial production aluminum is an almost century and half old technology, it is far from stagnating. New production methods and new alloys leveraging nanotechnology could make it even more the metal of the future than it is today.
For example, the addition of scandium to aluminum with a method forming precise nanoparticles of aluminum-magnesium-scandium can make aluminum alloy 40% stronger and 5x more resistant to damage by hydrogen.
Or complex Quasicrystals forming when mixing aluminum with zirconium which can make the alloy a lot better for 3D printed applications.
Or a titanium-aluminum (Ti-Al) based super-elastic alloy able to react minimally to a wide range of conditions and temperatures.
Aluminum could also find new applications, like for example aluminum-ion batteries to replace lithium-ion using similar principles, or aluminum-air batteries using the oxidation of aluminum as a fuel to form ultra-dense energy storage for EVs.
Final Thoughts: Is Aluminum a Smart Long-Term Investment?
Aluminum has been a crucial metal for the development of new technology, starting from aviation in the early 20th century, to today’s spaceships, 3D printed parts and advanced energy systems.
It is likely that its low cost, abundant resources, and unique properties will make it even more popular in the future.
This could be through using aluminum as a key component of advanced battery systems. Or creating new superalloys adapted to special conditions, like transporting and storing hydrogen, working in space, or be easier to forge using laser 3D printers.
Lowering energy costs, be it from advanced nuclear tech, geothermal, or wind & solar with batteries, should also make it even cheaper to produce, and therefore more popular to use.
In any case, aluminum, like steel, is likely to stay the center of our manufacturing and building capacity, making it an interesting material for investors to get exposure to.
Investing in the Aluminum Sector
Alcoa: A Leading Aluminum Investment Opportunity
Alcoa Corporation (AA -3.17%)
Alcoa is a global aluminum company with a presence worldwide and over the entire aluminum supply chain, from bauxite ore to aluminum metal and alumina (the intermediary product between bauxite and aluminum). It was initially founded in 1907 as the Aluminum Company of America.
Source: Alcoa
The company 41.3 Mdmt (Million dry metric tons) bauxite operations in 2024 send 85% of its shipment to Alcoa refineries.
Only 32% of the 13.2 Mt of produced alumina is sent to Alcoa foundries, producing 2.6 million tons of aluminum in 2024, with the rest sold to third parties.
Source: Alcoa
The company produces aluminum in various forms to match the requirements of many different manufacturing industries.
Source: Alcoa
Overall, aluminum production is a very energy-intensive activity, consuming electricity directly for smelting, oil for mining, coal to provide carbon in the smelting process, as well as consuming energy-intensive materials like caustic chemicals.
Still, Alcoa has made major efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, making it an industry leader in terms of carbon emissions, in part thanks to hydroelectricity facilities in Brazil, Canada, and Iceland. It also offers the Alcoa Sustana product line, with reduced carbon emissions and higher recycled metal content.
Source: Alcoa
Tariffs could impact the company, as facilities in Canada and Brazil (among others) are going to face steep tariffs to sell to the USA. However the company also has production facilities in the USA, and the value of domestically produced aluminum has risen accordingly, which should boost the profitability of Alcoa’s American foundries.
Source: Alcoa
Overall, Alcoa is a solid bet on the continuous popularity of aluminum for advanced manufacturing, aerospace, and power grid, all sectors where demand is expected to grow in the coming years.