TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: Aluminum trichloride and the alkali metal hydride are reacted in diethyl ether or in a mixed solvent system comprising greater than approximately 50% diethyl ether. The crystallization solution is free of an alkali metal borohydride. The alpha-alane is crystallized from the crystallization solution by removing ether from the crystallization solution by heating the crystallization solution to 80 - 97degreesC to reduce a volume of ether in the crystallization solution to less than 10 vol.%. (P1) further comprising adding additional ether to the crystallization solution and heating to 88 - 95degreesC and exposing alpha-alane to an acidic solution comprising hydrochloric acid (10 - 12 vol.%). The crystallization additive is added in an amount of 0.05 - 5 wt.% for adding to (s1) directly.Preferred Reactants: The alkali metal hydride is lithium hydride, sodium hydride, potassium hydride, calcium hydride, magnesium hydride, lithium aluminum hydride and/or sodium aluminum hydride. The aqueous ether solution comprises water (0.5 - 4 vol.%). The crystallization additive is dissolved in toluene. The crystallization additive is selected from squalene, cyclododecatriene, norbornylene, norbornadiene, a phenyl terminated polybutadiene, 2,4-dimethyl anisole, 3,5-dimethyl anisole, 2,6-dimethyl anisole and/or polydimethyl siloxane (preferably squalene, cyclododecatriene, norbornylene, norbornadiene and/or polydimethyl siloxane). EXAMPLE - To a dry, round bottom flask, anhydrous diethyl ether (420 ml) was added under an inert atmosphere and cooled to -10degreesC. Aluminum trichloride (12.8 g) was added to the anhydrous diethyl ether, taking care to not introduce moisture. A 1M lithium aluminum hydride (LAH) solution (440 ml) was transferred to an addition funnel and was added dropwise to the solution. The aluminum chloride and the LAH were reacted to form the alane-ether complex. The temperature of the reaction was not allowed to rise above 0degreesC. When the reaction had cooled down to -8 - 10degreesC, diethyl ether (19 ml) previously saturated with water was added. The resulting suspension was stirred for 15 minutes. The suspension was then filtered under an inert atmosphere, and was maintained at a temperature of 0degreesC. In reactor anhydrous toluene (5 liters) was added under an inert atmosphere. In addition, polydimethyl siloxane (3 ml) having a viscosity of 1 centistoke and seed crystals (100 mg) were added to the reactor. The solution of toluene, polydimethyl siloxane, and the seed crystals was heated to 92degreesC. The solution including the alane-etherate complex, was added to the reactor for one hour, taking care that the rate of addition was not so rapid that the temperature dropped below 88degreesC. The diethyl ether from the alane-etherate complex solution was removed and collected. The reaction was continued for approximately 1 hour, until most of the diethyl ether was recovered. The reaction was then cooled to 40degreesC. Approximately 10% HCl solution (500 ml) was added very slowly to the reactor with a rapid nitrogen or argon purge. When all gas evolution had stopped, the resulting suspension was discharged and filtered. After filtering, the solid alpha-alane crystals were rinsed with water and dried to obtain alpha-alane crystals.