Aluminum Fact Sheet

 

For my LCA, I will be analyzing the CD. One of the most important parts of the CD is made out of aluminum.


Aluminum is luckily the easiest metallic element in the Earth's crust! Hydrogen and oxygen forms bauxite which is then mined for aluminum. Aluminum is silver and white with a specific gravity of 2.7. A great conductor of electricity, it is very resilient to atmospheric corrosion. Its greatest quality is that it combines lightness and strength and can be used in a variety of industries. Australia creates about 40% of the world's bauxite and more than 30% of the world's alumina.

The extraction of aluminum metal takes place in three main stages. First is the mining of bauxite. Done by surface methods in which the topsoil and overburden are removed by bulldozers and scrapers, the underlying bauxite is mined by front-end loaders, power shovels, and hydraulic excavators.  The bauxite is then crushed and washed to remove the clay and sand waste and dried in rotary kilns. This ore is then loaded into trucks, railway cars, and onto ships.

The next step is refining. This involves four separate stages. First, is the digestion. This is when the finely ground bauxite is fed into a steam heated unit called a digester. This forms a solution of sodium aluminate. Then comes the clarification. This is where the green liquor is seperated from the waste. Here, waste is removed, red mud is separated out, and the remaining green liquor is pumped through filters. Then in the precipitation stage, the alumina is precipitated from the liquor as crystals of alumina hydrate. The last stage is through calcination. Here, the alumina hydrate is washed to remove any remaining liquor and is dried. Then it is heated to remove the water of crystallization.

The last step is the smelting where aluminum and oxygen in the alumina are separated by electrolysis. This happens through passing an electric current through a molten solution of alumina and natural or synthetic crolite. Periodically, the molten metallic aluminum collects at the bottom of the pot and is siphoned off and transfered to large holding furnaces.

There are many uses of aluminum. These include electrical equipment, cars, ships, aircraft, chemical processes, packaging, kitchen utensils, and industrial construction to name a few.

What is the Value of Money

The value of money is based on the idea of "fairness." Without some sort of way to establish what is the correct means to an item or service, our world would turn into chaos. The saying that money doesn't not buy happiness rings true to my ears. Some people believe that with money, you can buy your way to smiles and less worries, but the world says otherwise. Multiple movies have come out based on life experiences of people who thought this. An example that comes from one of my favorite films, "There Will Be Blood." Here, an oil man in the late 1800s named Daniel Plainview decides to drill for oil in his attempt to gain wealth. In the process of doing so he destroys many relationships including one with his own son. By the end of the movie, he sits alone in his house with no one else in it. One man with a mansion with no one else to care about.

I am not anti-money and sure I enjoy throwing around some bills when I can afford it, but what I think really matters to most people are the relationships they enjoy. A priest once told me something that has stuck with me since. Being a priest, he has been with many people on their death beds who have needed someone to talk to vent to. He says that through all his years, he has never met someone who regretted not making more money or buying new things. The things people vented to him about were about other people. Regrets, decisions they never made, calls they never took. This in the long run is what matters.

While I guess I spoke more about the meaning of life than the value of money, the value of money is just a way to reach a well-lived life. There are many roads in life people take in their pursuit to happiness. Money like everything else can help or hurt on the way. The true value of life is how you affect others along the way.