I've received multiple questions about the naming of element 13, which I call aluminum and most of the world calls aluminium. Why are there two names? Sir Humphry Davy proposed the name aluminum, back before the element was officially discovered. However, the name 'aluminium' was adopted to conform with the -ium names of most other elements. In 1925, the American Chemical Society decided to go back to the original aluminum, so the United States uses a different name from most other countries. The IUPAC periodic table lists both spellings.
Still confused? Here's a little more about the history of aluminum's naming and discovery. Guyton de Morveau (1761) called alum, a base which had been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, by the name alumine. In 1808, Humphry Davy identified the existence of the metal in alum, which he at first named alumium and later aluminum. Davy knew aluminum existed, but he didn't isolate the element. Friedrich Wöhler isolated aluminum in 1827 by mixing anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium. Actually, though, the metal was produced two years earlier, though in impure form, by the Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted. Depending on your source, the discovery of aluminum is credited to either Ørsted or Wöhler.
Pictures of Famous Chemists | Aluminum (or Aluminium) Facts
Image: Sir Humphry Davy. Engraving taken from "The Life of Sir Humphry Davy" by John A. Paris, London: Colburn and Bentley, 1831.
Comments
Aluminium is for non-american enlishmen like Australians or canadians and uk people but aluminum is for U.S.A people
And if you are not american then maybe you picked it up from some American person!
Canadians also pronounce and spell the word aluminum! It must be something that the whole of North America does while the rest of the English speaking world calls it aluminium!
The Austrian scientist, Karl Joseph Bayer, who discovered it actually named it Aluminum. The Brits came along after and decided it had to “rhyme” with the other elements on the periodic table and renamed it Aluminium. So who is right? I tend to lean towards to discoverer not those who are more interested in rhyming.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) officially standardised on aluminium in 1990, though this has done nothing, of course, to change the way people in the US spell it for day to day purposes.
Having worked in both England and the United States, i prefer aluminium because of the British pronunciation. In the US, Aluminum and alumina are easier to confuse, especially in a lab with noisy equipment. The extra syllable in alu-mini-um makes it easier to hear the difference between the metal from the ceramic. Not a big deal, but occasionally helpful.
Amazing job, Kathy. This is so trivial, but you manage to make it sound political. Is this how you discuss everything that you disagree with?
Wrong The English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy underlined the existence of the element arguing that “alum” was the salt of an unknown metal which he said should be called ‘ALUMIUM’ NOT ALUMINUM The name was respelt as the more pleasant sounding ‘aluminium’ by later Canadian scientists, So there!!!!
I have it on the authority of a retired engineer who worked all over the world in the aluminium refining industry for years, that when the Aluminium Corporation of America (ALCOA) was formed, the order for their stationary (letterheads,envelopes, etc) was sent out with a typo – “aluminum”. It was too costly for the then fledgling company to have everything re-printed. Human error. Sounds credible.
To be correct, Sir Humphrey original naming was alumium (1807). He then changed his mind to aluminum 5 years later (1812), before scientific consensus was reached on aluminium in the same year (1812).
If one’s policy is to use the original naming, then neither popular versions are correct and you should use “alumium”.
If one’s policy is to use the scientifically agreed version, then you should use “aluminum”.