The evolution of technology for light metals over the last 50 years: Al, Mg, and Li

This paper has been written in response to a request to review technological progress over the past 50 years on "... aluminum, magnesium, recycling, and alkali metals, ranging from key aspects of extractive processing to end product development" in approximately eight printed pages. I hope that I can be excused for failing to compress all that time and all subjects into these pages and the time available for preparation! Accordingly the following is biased toward areas of which I am least ignorant; the result has been an emphasis on aluminum, particularly on how it is produced. That emphasis might anyway be appropriate in view of the membership of the Light Metals Division of TMS. Magnesium receives coverage (and here I have been greatly helped by others through the literature or e-mail correspondence) while lithium, the only alkali metal that I think of as a material, receives brief mention.