Description
Bauxite is a mineral that forms an important ore of aluminum. Bauxite consists largely of aluminum oxide; depending on its origin, it also contains compounds of titanium, iron, and silicon. Bauxite is named after the village of Les Baux-de-Provence in the south of France, where it was discovered in 1821 by the French geologist Pierre Berthier. Mining of bauxite in France ceased in 1991. Bauxite is processed into aluminum by first converting it to its oxide (the Bayer process), and then producing the metal from it through electrolysis of the melt. This latter process, the Hall-Héroult process, is very energy-intensive; therefore, aluminum factories are often built adjacent to power plants. Bauxite was discovered in Suriname in 1915. The proceeds from bauxite are one of the main sources of income for the Surinamese state. In the European Union, Greece is the only state with economically extractable bauxite in its soil. In 1924, "poor iron ore" was discovered, which was identified as bauxite a few years later. Industrial processing began in 1934. As of 2010, Australia is the largest supplier of the mineral.
