Bayer process
Proceso Bayer
- Date
- 1888 · confidence high
- Place
- Saint Petersburg, Russia
- Credited to
- Carl Josef Bayer
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Bayer, working in Saint Petersburg, devised a method for extracting alumina from bauxite by dissolving it in pressurised, heated sodium hydroxide, then precipitating aluminium hydroxide and calcining it. The process, a foundation of modern hydrometallurgy, still produces almost all the world's alumina today.
What it led to
- Replacement of the Deville-Pechiney process
- Cheap alumina supply for the Hall-Héroult aluminium smelting process
- The birth of modern hydrometallurgy
Built on
- Hall-Héroult aluminium process1886
- The Hall-Héroult electrolytic aluminium smelting process