Portrait of Paul Héroult

Adapted from ⁠an image (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

1863–1914

Paul Héroult

French inventor who found the same electrolytic process as Charles Martin Hall in the same year, and later designed the electric arc furnace for steel.

Element

13AlAluminium
1886

In a woodshed in Oberlin, Ohio, Charles Martin Hall made aluminium by passing a current through alumina dissolved in molten cryolite. Paul Héroult found the same process in France that year, and the metal stopped being as costly as silver.

Keep exploring

Where the dates and stories on this page come from; each event on the timeline links to its own source.