Aluminium - Enriching A Billion Lives

Airbus's latest poster boy is the brand new aluminium-based model A350-1000. Qatar Airways took delivery of the world’s first Airbus A350-1000 just a week ago. Major Asian airlines like China Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airlines, Philippine Airlines, are among the big names included in the list of 14 airlines that have queued up to operate the advanced aircraft soon. The Airbus A 350-1000 So what’s the big deal about a new plane? We all know the fierce rivalry between Boeing and Airbus. Quality, innovation and efficiency – the aircraft manufacturing behemoths have always had a cutthroat competition in these areas. This time, Airbus is shifting tides in its favour by launching the latest A350 model in the skies. According to Airbus Marketing Director Francois Obe, “Forecasts show about 40% of the world’s air traffic will come from Asia in the next 20 years. In that sense, our latest A350 model is the product with the best capacity which is adapted to the evolvin...

The humble Aluminium can. What's so special about the ubiquitous can? We start our story with a simple question asked in the 18th century for a very complex problem at that time. The year is 1795. Napoleon declares 12,000 Francs to anyone who can devise a way of preserving food for his army & navy. For millennia, it had baffled even champion strategists and generals on how to feed the troops during a war. How does one supply (fresh) food to thousands of men across several inaccessible locations of battle without requiring to replenish the stock again and again? Stripping small towns and villages of its resources was not always a reliable option. So what could be a viable solution then? For 15 years, the money went unrewarded… until confectioner Nicolas François Appert claimed the prize in 1809. He experimented on the preservation of fruit in sugar jellies by sealing them in glass jars and heating them for varying lengths of time. But he could only claim the prize ...

Hyperkin's Ultra Game Boy The Game Boy is one of the most iconic video game consoles ever to have been invented. Introduced by Nintendo almost 28 years ago, the handheld marvel garnered a massive fan following with the youth and adults alike. Hyperkin, a retro console manufacturing company, has brought back the nostalgia and the fervour in a brand new avatar of the Gameboy. Codenamed Ultra GB, Hyperkin unveiled the console in a sturdy aluminium casing with all-new features and perfections in CES 2018, Las Vegas. It's about the same size, although this one comes with a LED display screen.   Aluminium Body Although the aluminium casing makes it slightly heavier than the original plastic version, it makes the console much more durable and classy. The model featured a blue screen at CES, however in future, one would be able to adjust the backlight colour to a number of diverse hues (including that classic yellowish-greenish palette of the very first Ga...

This is unlike any Lamborghini automobile ever! An SUV from the company who produces supercars made from the blood of raging bulls? Of course, they are calling it the world’s first Super Sports Utility Vehicle – a fact we can’t deny given the super specs on the automobile and Lamborghini’s signature design. Will this animal from Lamborghini’s bullpen deliver on the brand’s promise? Let’s find out! From the outside, the vehicle sports the signature of Lamborghini’s extreme design yet finds a way to make it less aggressive for the owners who just want to buy milk on a cold Monday morning from the nearest market. However, on the inside, it’s still a beast. The front hood houses the 4 litre V8 twin-turbo engine with 650 HP and 850 Nm of torque. Acceleration from 0-100 km/h is achieved in just 3.6 seconds and the top speed is a staggering 305 km/h! Braking is no less impressive: the Urus decelerates from 100 km/h to 0 in 33.7 meters. The vehicle is 4-wheel steering with carbon-c...

Welcome back! Here's the third post on the history of the wonder metal - Aluminium.  Let's move on in our journey and check out the important milestones that shaped our history. Read our first & second post in this series. 1939: The world’s first turbojet-powered aircraft, the German Heinkel He 178, took to air on the 27th of August, 1939. Powered by a centrifugal-flow engine prototyped by Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain, Ernst Heinkel designed the aircraft to achieve flight speeds up to 380 miles per hour. Despite the successful flight demonstration, the Reich Air Ministry (RLM) rejected the aeroplane stating that its combat endurance was only 10 minutes which limited its usability as a military aircraft in a war situation. German Heinkel He 178 1948: The production of Series I, the first model of Land Rover cars, started off in 1948. Designed with an aluminium body and a steel-box chassis, it was originally intended for farming and light industrial us...

We're back with the second post on the history of the wonder metal - Aluminium. Thanks for coming back. Let's roll forward on our journey and check out the important milestones that shaped our history.   Read our first post in this series here . 1886: The electrolytic process of extracting aluminium used today in some smelters was invented by two scientists –   Charles Martin Hall  and Paul Louis-Toussaint Héroult . The former was a French scientist and the later, an American chemist. The duo invented and even patented this process at the same time while working independently. The scientific world gave recognition to both by calling this the Hall-Héroult Process of aluminium extraction. We’d totally watch a movie made on this! The Hall - Héroult duo 1888: Charles Hall and his partners founded a smelter in Kensington, Pennsylvania, which extracted aluminium using the process invented by Hall himself. Initially, the company churned out 22....

Hello everyone! Aluminium is called the 'Metal of the Future' for a reason. From pins to planes, the metal has thousands of applications benefitting humankind. Its lightweight and non-corrosive property make it the material of choice for cutting-edge automobiles, modern buildings, satellites etc. and is eventually substituting iron and steel today.  In this series, we bring to you the journey that our civilisation has travelled using aluminium along the way - a story which must start from the very beginning. Here we go! Did you know that aluminium is the most common metal found in earth’s crust? Almost 8% which, considering the earth’s size, is pretty staggering. However, given the difficulty in extracting aluminium and the subsequent costs associated with it, for decades aluminium was prized above gold. So much so that the first president of 1948 French Second Republic, proudly served his most honoured guests using aluminium plates & cutlery. Whoa! From the...