Economic Features
Bauxite (hydrated aluminum oxide) is the principal ore of aluminum. Over three-fourths of the world's bauxite production and 65 per cent of the United States production is used for the manufacture of aluminum. On an average six tons of bauxite are required to make one ton of metallic aluminum. Other important uses of bauxite are in the manufacture of artificial abrasives in the electric furnace, and in the preparation of alum, aluminum sulphate, and other chemicals which are used for water-purification, tanning, and dyeing. Relatively small but increasingly important quantities are used in making bauxite brick or high alumina refractories for furnace-linings.
Aluminum is used principally in castings and drawn and pressed ware, for purposes in which lightness, malleability, and unalterability under ordinary chemical reagents are desired. Thus it is used in parts of airplane and automobile engines, in household utensils, and recently in the framework of airplanes. Aluminum wire has been used as a substitute for copper wire as an electrical conductor. Aluminum is used in metallurgy to remove oxygen from iron and steel, and also in the manufacture of alloys. Powdered aluminum is used for the production of high temperatures in the Thermite process, and is a constituent of the explosive, ammonal, and of aluminum paints.
Deposits of bauxite usually contain as impurities silica (in the form of kaolin or hydrous aluminum silicate), iron oxide, and titanium minerals, in varying proportions. Bauxites to be of commercial grade should carry at least 50 per cent alumina, and for the making of aluminum should be low in silica though the content of iron may be fairly high. For aluminum chemicals materials low in iron and titanium are preferred; and for refractories which must withstand high temperatures, low iron content seems to be necessary. The abrasive trade in general uses low-silica high-iron bauxites.
The only large producers of bauxite are the United States and France, which supplied in normal times before the war over 95 per cent of the world's total. Small amounts are produced in Ireland, Italy, India, and British Guiana. During the war a great deal of low-grade bauxite was mined in Austria-Hungary and possibly in Germany; but on account of the large reserves of high-grade material in other parts of the world, it is doubtful whether these deposits will be utilized in the future. Bauxites of good grade have been reported from Africa, Australia, and many localities in India. From geologic considerations it is practically certain that there are very large quantities available for the future in some of these regions.
The international movements and the consumption of bauxite are largely determined by the manufacture of aluminum, and to a lesser extent by the manufacture of abrasives and chemicals. The principal foreign producers of aluminum are France, Switzerland (works partly German-owned), Norway (works controlled by English and French capital), England, Canada, Italy, Germany, and Austria. French bauxite has normally supplied the entire European demands,—with the exceptions that Italy procures part of her requirements at home, and that the Irish deposits furnish a small fraction of the English demand.
The deposits of southern France, controlled largely by French but in part by British capital, have large reserves and will probably continue to meet the bulk of European requirements. France also has important reserves of bauxite in French Guiana.
The United States produces about half of the aluminum of the world, and is the largest manufacturer of artificial abrasives and probably of aluminum chemicals. Most of these are made from domestic bauxite. Prior to the war, the United States imported about 10 per cent of the bauxite consumed, but these imports were mainly high-grade French bauxite which certain makers of chemicals preferred to the domestic material. The small production of Guiana is also imported into the United States. Bauxite is exported to Canadian makers of aluminum and abrasives. During the war period domestic deposits were entirely capable of supplying all the domestic as well as Canadian demands for bauxite, although these demands increased to two and one-half times their previous figure. At the same time considerable amounts of manufactured aluminum products were exported to Europe, whereas aluminum had previously been imported from several European countries.
The United States production of bauxite comes mainly from Arkansas, with smaller amounts from Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. The reserves are large but are not inexhaustible. Most of the important deposits are controlled by the large consumers of bauxite, principally the Aluminum Company of America and its subsidiaries, though certain chemical and abrasive companies own some deposits. The Aluminum Company of America also controls immense deposits of high-grade bauxite in Dutch and British Guiana, and further exploration by American interests is under way.
With the return to normal conditions since the war, some of the domestic bauxite deposits probably can not be worked at a profit, a situation which is likely to require the development of the tropical American deposits.