Most people take many things around them for granted. They get up in the morning, turn on the light, open their can of peaches then eat the peaches with a spoon. The light goes on magically, the peaches are still fresh in their can to no surprise and it takes little to no effort to lift the light spoon to the mouth. All these things happen or are there thanks to Aluminium. Amazingly enough, aluminium does not magically appear and to be produced lots of raw materials, chemical reactions, money and time are needed.

The process in which aluminium is made involves three complex steps; the mining of bauxite, the refining of aluminia and the smeltering of aluminium.

The first step, mining Bauxite, is planned five years in advance so the areas that are to be mined can be developed. Once mined the Bauxite has to be processed before being shipped to the refineries. In a beneficication plant, fine particles are removed from the Bauxite by screening and washing it. It is then placed on stockpiles before being shipped away.

In the second step aluminium oxide, which is Alumina, is removed from the Bauxite using the Bayer Refining Process. Firstly the bauxite is ground up into fine particles and is mixed with hot, caustic soda (NaOH) solution to dissolve the alumina and some forms of silica. Not dissolved in this process are other elements such as silica, iron and titanium. These are then filtered off.

The alumina and caustic soda solution is then put into rows of thickener tanks. In the tanks a fine red mud sinks to the bottom as well as the silica, iron and titanium. Remaining alumina trihydrate is then filtered to clean it even more. The solution is then cooled, concentrated and stirred in open top tanks until pure alumina...