7
$\begingroup$

While trying to figure out how a civilization with 16-17th century technology could make airships I started to wonder how the wide availability of aluminum would affect a civilization. In our timeline aluminum started to become economically viable in large quantities in the late 19th century, one thing that I could see being a hurdle to overcome for a civilization attempting to widely use aluminum is the refining process. It takes a lot of power to make usable aluminum.

How could a civilization that has not discovered electricity yet reliably mass produce aluminum and what uses would such a civilization have for it?

In universe considerations: The industrial revolution started much earlier in this world around what we would consider the late 1500s.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
5
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ This is two questions in one: The first is 'How could a civilization that has not discovered electricity yet reliably mass produce aluminum?' and the second is 'What uses would a civilization with 16-17th century technology have for mass-produce aluminum'? Please limit yourself to one question per post. And the answer to the first is that to the present day no one has successfully found a way to economically mass produce aluminum without electricity. $\endgroup$
    – Halfthawed
    Apr 29, 2022 at 17:39
  • $\begingroup$ "How could a civilization that has not discovered electricity yet reliably mass produce aluminum?" I am unsure if this is a fair question seeing as how we have not been able to do this in reality which means that you have to provide some constraints or criteria because any solution would involve just making up random stuff up out of thin air from a non-existing material that just happens to the lower the smelting temperature to magical rocks that make heat out of nowhere. $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Apr 29, 2022 at 18:14
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Anyone who knows how to mass-produce aluminium with 17th century technology will run to the patent office and become richer than Elon Musk. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Apr 29, 2022 at 19:01
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ The tip of the Washington Monument is an aluminum pyramid, which seems silly to most people today. But not when you consider that pure aluminum was historically so rare that Emperor Napoleon kept a special set of aluminum cutlery for special occasions (i.e. when he wasn't conquering Europe). Wiki says: "At the time of casting, it was the largest piece of aluminum in the world." $\endgroup$
    – Tom
    Apr 29, 2022 at 23:10
  • $\begingroup$ @Tom: Emperor Napoleon III "the Modernizer", not Napoleon I "the Conqueror". There's about half a century between them, and in that half century the world went through one of the most rapid periods of transformation. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Apr 30, 2022 at 20:15

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
8
$\begingroup$

How could a civilization that has not discovered electricity yet reliably mass produce aluminum and what uses would such a civilization have for it?

I will only address the first part of the question.

The most natural solution would be: the planet has minerals which contain aluminium in native or very reduced form.

On Earth and actually everywhere in the solar system aluminium occurs as aluminium oxide. Most of it is incorporated in plagioclase and clay minerals. Native aluminium exists as an extremely rare trace mineral in mantle rocks, often alloyed with iron and with traces of silicon and magnesium or - in meteorites - copper and zinc.

When a planet forms, the aluminium will always get oxidized. To get native aluminium there must be geological processes that produce it. You need a very reducing environment (low oxygen abundance) and high tmperatures (2000°C or so), so the planet should have high volcanic activity. Higher than terrestrial abundance of radioactive elements would help creating a higher temperature gradient and more volcanism. Native aluminium will form in the mantle, which is more reducing than crustal rocks, and will be transported to the surface by plate tectonics.

Conditions should be dry, at least locally, to prevent the aluminium from reacting with water in geological time scales.

High carbon abundance would facilitate the formation of native aluminium by carbothermic reactions like Al2O3 + 3 C -> 2 Al + 3 CO at temperatures above 1800°C. The process could also produce aluminium carbide (Al4C3). That would be a mineral from which aluminium metal would be relatively easy to recover (decomposition temperature 1400°C), but would again need very dry and reducing conditions to be stable. Even the presence of silicate would make the mineral unstable, leading to formation of aluminium oxide and silicon carbide (SiC).

Naturally, a planet that possesses appreciable amounts of native aluminium would have to have a large amount of other reduced minerals, too: elemental silicon, silicon carbide, native iron etc., all continuously produced by subterranean smelting processes and then brought to the surface where after some time they get oxidized by water and air. It would be a society with a generally better availability of industrially important elements than we have.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
8
  • $\begingroup$ Curiosity question: has Al4Cl ever been found in natural minerals? $\endgroup$
    – UVphoton
    Apr 29, 2022 at 22:53
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Nope. Aluminium is so reactive, that it can't occur in its native form. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Apr 29, 2022 at 22:56
  • $\begingroup$ But it DOES occur in its native form. It occurs both in mantle rocks and meteorites. In the latter it is usually alloyed with copper (cupalite). It needs, as I pointed out, very reducing conditions which are rarely met on Earth, so you get only traces of it. $\endgroup$
    – Avun Jahei
    Apr 29, 2022 at 23:01
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @UVphoton No, you don't. You mean Al4C3, right? $\endgroup$
    – Avun Jahei
    Apr 29, 2022 at 23:34
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @AvunJahei Yes, it’s been a long day. $\endgroup$
    – UVphoton
    Apr 29, 2022 at 23:57
6
$\begingroup$

It is pretty well known that all the primary production methods for producing aluminum use electrolysis. It also an energy intensive process - so researchers periodically look around for other ways to make a aluminum. There is a Russian research group that has claimed that through a chemical process at lower temperatures one can extract aluminum and potentially cut the energy consumption for aluminum production by about 1/2. The paper is "A new non-electrolytic aluminum extraction method", by Parenov et al., Without commenting of the legitimacy of the claims. The temperatures are high 300-500C, but with some ingenuity in reach, but the difficulty is that it is a process that has lots of steps and relies using reactive elements like Iodine and Clorine- so it transfers your problem from not having electricity to having a society that has a lot of chemistry knowlege. Then there are practical issues like having a good source of Bauxite and how they would prepare that. The actual discovery of aluminum was taking bauxite and mixing it with reactive chemicals, For example

Oersted reacted aluminium chloride (AlCl3) with potassium amalgam (an alloy of potassium and mercury). Heating the resulting aluminium amalgam under reduced pressure caused the mercury to boil away leaving an impure sample of aluminium metal.

This was expensive, but it did produce some aluminum.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
$\begingroup$

Very difficult. Aluminium oxide is very stable and inert and it was extremely expensive until electrolysis. Historically, it was produced using sodium metal...but that's normally produced using electrolysis too.

Henri Deville's 1825 process went: Hydrochloric acid + alumina -> aluminium trichloride, which reacted with sodium gives aluminium. Sodium can be produced without electrolysis by thermal methods by reacting sodium carbonate with carbon at high temperature.

I'd suggest that this is your only possible avenue; Al was more expensive than gold prior to the Deville process.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ The Chinese managed porcelain because they had a) wonderful furnaces, but also b) a natural soil mix that contained pretty much exactly what you need for porcelain. If your world had a giant pile of natron mixed with carbon, sodium would be a natural result of heating it under reduced pressure. A few alchemical experiments later, you could get aluminium. $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Apr 30, 2022 at 0:29
0
$\begingroup$

Others have done a good job answering the electrical question, I will address the second: what uses would a civilization without electricity have for aluminum?

The answer is going to be along the same lines as what we currently use aluminum for. So let's consider it's useful properties. This probably isn't an exhaustive list, but aluminum is tough, lightweight, cools off quickly, and is resistant to corrosion. In the real world it's also fairly easy to shape into whatever form you need, but that may or may not be true in your world (depending on the answers to your first question). Let's apply these.

Computers and cars are obviously out, but construction is not. Buildings and boats of all sorts would make use of this. You mentioned airships in your post and we do make airplanes out of aluminum, so it'd be useful there as well.

We also use aluminum in a lot of consumer goods, but your civilization may not yet be producing a huge number of consumer goods, depending on just how far your world is into its industrial revolution. If you have a lot of factories producing a lot of goods, aluminum is probably in heavy use there. If not, then there are probably still specialists using aluminum to make goods for the nobles who can afford it.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

Start with native aluminum.

Most solutions involve Renaissance with electricity, which isn't going to feel authentic. But native aluminum does exist, in small quantities in unusual places. The deposit in China is thought to be associated with the Nanjing Belt, an isolated instance of an aluminum artifact from ancient China. (There's also some yarn running around the internet about a bowl of peculiar metal presented to a Roman emperor who killed the inventor, and which was attributed to be one of those Chinese artifacts, but it was anything but certain and I can't remember a reference)

Otherwise you have to get weird.

In anything but a modern society, aluminum will be interpreted as a precious metal, as it was in the U.S. in the late 1800s. If you want to make it common enough to be cheap, you need a more reducing planet (no O2 in atmosphere, maybe), or postulate a naturally evolved organism that produces aluminum teeth/etc. biochemically.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

Aluminum did exist and was produced in small quantities before electricity. There is a small pyramid of Aluminum at the top of the Washington monument in DC. It was considered a more rare and valuable material than gold.

I don't see you producing a large enough quantity for an airship. Silk bags with light weight wood frame would be a better choice.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .