Paul Héroult

Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult ( born April 10, 1863 in Thury -Harcourt, † May 9, 1914 in Antibes ) was a French chemist.

Paul Heroult, the son of a tanner was reading at the age of 16 years, while he still attended school in Caen Henri Etienne Sainte -Claire Deville's book De l' aluminum, ses propriétés .. which was published in Paris in 1859. Deville was first produced in 1854 aluminum. Since the production of aluminum by Deville process was expensive, Heroult put in his head to find a way to produce aluminum on a cost effective way.

Heroult studied at the Collège Sainte -Barbe in Paris and then returned back to Caen first back to work in his father's tannery. He also worked on a process for the production of aluminum. His first patent he filed in February 1886, it was confirmed on 23 April 1886. It described the fused-salt electrolysis of aluminum, which had been discovered at almost the same time by the American chemist Charles Martin Hall and is referred to as Hall - Heroult process.

Beginning in 1887 tried Heroult the support of Alfred Rangod Pechiney ( 1833-1916 ) to win, was produced in the factory aluminum by the method of Deville. Pechiney urged Heroult to modify his electrolytic process, with this, however, could not produce pure aluminum.

Therefore Heroult sought contact with entrepreneurs in Switzerland, where he had a small dynamo ordered at Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, which should provide power for the electric oven invented by him. In the spring of 1887 he came to the acceptance of the machine to Zurich and presented in Oerlikon studies, which caught the attention of the Director of this company, Peter Emil Huber- Werdmüller. Huber immediately recognized the genius and the scope of the invention Héroultschen and examined their industrial evaluation for Switzerland to secure. Here he made ​​contact with Gustave Naville of Escher Wyss & Cie. on, as well as with Georg Robert Neher, the JG Neher Sons & Co.. represented in Neuhausen and ordered the company about the water rights at the Rhine Falls.

In 1887 founded " Swiss Metallurgical Society" to test the Heroult process. Heroult was Technical Director and went in 1888 in the United States to defend its patents against claims of Hall. During his absence, the test runs were successfully completed for his trial and on 18 November 1888, the "Aluminium Industrie Aktiengesellschaft " ( AIAG ) Neuhausen was founded for the purpose of mass production of aluminum by the Hall - Heroult process. The AIAG was the precursor Alusuisse.

Soon were occasionally observed electrical arc between the surface of the electrolyte and the electrodes, resulting Heroult and Martin Kiliani developed the electric arc furnace. This arc furnace, the prototype of the modern electric steel furnace, was first used for the direct reduction of iron ore in La Praz 1903.

Swell

• Weisz, Leo: Studies on trade and industrial history of Switzerland. Second volume. 258 S. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Zurich. 1940.
• Lance Day ( Ed.): Biographical dictionary of the history of technology. 844 S. Routledge London., 1998. ISBN 0-415-19399-0

• Chemists ( 19th century)
• Frenchman
• Born in 1863
• Died in 1914
• Man