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Aluminium, also spelled aluminum in American English, is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and makes up about 8% of its mass. The metal is light, silvery-white, and highly malleable, with good electrical and thermal conductivity. In nature it does not occur free; it is found primarily in minerals such as bauxite.

A key property of aluminium is the presence of a thin native oxide layer that forms on its surface, which protects the metal from further corrosion and contributes to its durability in many environments. This corrosion resistance makes aluminium suitable for outdoor and structural applications, particularly when alloyed with other elements.

Industrial production begins with refining bauxite to produce alumina (Al2O3) via the Bayer process, followed by electrolytic reduction in the Hall–Héroult process to obtain metallic aluminium. The process is energy-intensive, which makes recycling important. Recovered aluminium requires only a fraction of the energy needed to produce primary metal, and recycled aluminium can be repeatedly reused with little loss of performance.

Aluminium alloys, typically combined with magnesium, silicon, or manganese, offer improved strength while retaining lightness. These alloys underpin applications in aerospace, automotive, packaging (such as cans), construction, and electrical engineering. The metal’s combination of light weight, formability, corrosion resistance, and conductivity explains its ubiquity across many industries.

Historically, aluminium was first isolated in the early 19th century, with industrial-scale production expanding in the late 1880s after the development of efficient electrolytic methods.