Hans Christian Øersted, a Dutch scientist who in 1825 reacted potassium amalgram and aluminum chloride together, and became the first to isolate aluminum. However, his samples of aluminum were not completely pure. It was only until the 1880's that the process of isolating aluminum was perfected by Charles Martin Hall, Paul L. T. Héroult, and Karl Joseph Bayer.
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Aluminum is very common in the earth's crust (about 7.5%-8.2% of the Earth's crust) but it is not found in pure form. It only occurs naturally in compounds, such as aluminum hydroxide, which is found in large amounts in bauxite.
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