60 Fun Facts About Platinum

What is platinum's atomic number?

Its symbol is Pt; gold is 79 and palladium, its lighter sibling, is 46.

Platinum's name comes from the Spanish 'platina', a diminutive meaning what?

The Spanish at first regarded it as an annoying impurity in gold and often threw it away.

Platinum sits in which numbered column of the periodic table?

It is also one of the six platinum-group metals along with ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium and iridium.

How many naturally occurring isotopes does platinum have?

Platinum-195, about 34 percent of the total, is the only stable one with a non-zero spin, making it useful in NMR.

Platinum is the most ductile of all pure metals, beating which three?

Its resistance to wear and tarnish is why it suits fine jewelry.

Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid alone but dissolves in what?

The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids produces chloroplatinic acid, H2PtCl6.

Which halogen reacts vigorously with platinum at 500 °C to form platinum tetrafluoride?

Otherwise unreactive, platinum is also attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine and sulfur.

What are platinum's two most common oxidation states?

Platinum(II) compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries.

Gerhard Ertl won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for explaining which reaction on platinum?

That is the chemistry inside a catalytic converter.

Roughly what is platinum's average abundance in Earth's crust?

Only a few hundred tonnes are produced each year, mostly as a by-product of nickel and copper mining.

Which pre-Columbian culture of the Ecuador-Colombia coast made gold-platinum alloy artifacts?

They sintered gold and platinum powders together to make an alloy soft enough to shape.

The first European reference to platinum, in 1557, came from which Italian humanist?

He described an unknown noble metal 'which no fire nor any Spanish artifice has yet been able to liquefy'.

Which Spanish naval officer's 1748 report on a Colombian 'new metal' brought platinum to science?

He later governed Spanish Louisiana and superintended the mercury mines of Huancavelica.

British metallurgist Charles Wood found Colombian platinum samples in 1741 where?

He sent them to William Brownrigg, who presented the metal to the Royal Society in 1750.

Henrik Scheffer's 1752 description of platinum called it by what name?

He fused platinum ore with the aid of arsenic and noted its resistance to corrosion.

Which French chemist, backed by Charles III of Spain, produced 23 kg of pure malleable platinum in 1786?

Unknown to him, his ore still held other platinum-group metals, which made results inconsistent.

Which English chemist discovered palladium and rhodium while purifying platinum ore?

He also patented the camera lucida.

Which French king called platinum 'the only metal fit for a king'?

Its scarcity and intrinsic value made it a royal favourite in the 18th century.

Who made the first platinum crucible in 1784?

He fused the platinum with arsenic and then volatilized the arsenic away.

Hans Merensky's 1924 platinum discovery lay in which South African geological formation?

The Merensky Reef contains around 75 percent of the world's known platinum.

Roughly what share of the world's known platinum lies in the Merensky Reef?

The Bushveld Complex is the largest layered igneous intrusion in Earth's crust.

In 2010 South Africa produced almost what share of the world's platinum?

Russia was second with 13 percent, mostly from the copper-nickel deposits near Norilsk.

Sperrylite, platinum arsenide, is a major source of platinum in which Canadian nickel deposit?

The basin is an ancient impact site; platinum is present at only 0.5 ppm but the ore volume makes it worthwhile.

Which two other large platinum deposits, along with the Bushveld, dominate world supply?

Alluvial platinum is also still mined in the Ural Mountains and Colombia's Chocó.

A mine at Platinum, Alaska produced about 17,000 kg of the metal between 1927 and what year?

The mine finally ceased operations in 1990.

Platinum-group metals settle to the bottom of copper electrorefining cells as what?

That residue, also holding gold, silver, selenium and tellurium, is the starting point for extraction.

Why can nickel and iron impurities be removed from raw platinum with an electromagnet?

Lighter impurities are floated off in liquid, and acid-soluble ones are dissolved away.

What was the largest use of platinum in 2014, taking 45 percent of the 218 tonnes sold?

Jewelry was second at 34 percent.

Most US gasoline cars have carried catalytic converters since which model year?

Three-way converters that also cut nitrogen oxides were first sold by Volvo on 1977 California-spec cars.

PtO2, used to hydrogenate vegetable oils, is known by what name?

Platinum has been used as a catalyst since the early 19th century, when platinum powder was used to ignite hydrogen.

From 1889 to 1960 the metre was defined by a bar made of which alloy?

The earlier 1799 bar was pure platinum; the same alloy defined the kilogram until 2019.

The kilogram prototype 'Le Grand K' was made in London in 1879 by which firm?

The golf-ball-sized platinum-iridium cylinder defined the kilogram until 2019.

The standard platinum resistance thermometer helps define which temperature scale?

NIST made the wire from platinum bar stock of 99.999 percent purity.

What is platinum bullion's ISO currency code?

XAU is gold, XAG silver and XPD palladium.

Platinum jewelry is commonly sold at what fineness?

Watchmakers like Rolex and Patek Philippe use it because it is more durable than gold yet does not tarnish.

Which American warehouse club began selling platinum bars on its website by 2024?

When gold outprices platinum, buyers in markets like Dubai's gold souk often switch to platinum.

Cisplatin, the platinum chemotherapy drug, was first synthesized in 1844 by whom?

It was known as Peyrone's chloride until Rosenberg's 1965 E. coli experiments revealed its effect on cell division.

Barnett Rosenberg found cisplatin's anti-cancer potential in 1965 while running current through what?

Electrolysis of his platinum electrodes produced a complex that stopped the bacteria dividing.

Besides cisplatin, which two platinum compounds are named as chemotherapy drugs?

Platinum drugs treat testicular, ovarian, lung and other cancers.

Platinum-cobalt alloy, roughly three parts platinum to one part cobalt, is used to make what?

Platinum anodes also protect ships, pipelines and steel piers from corrosion.

Why is platinum used to handle molten glass?

Its inertness at high temperature also makes it ideal for laboratory crucibles and thermogravimetry pans.

In the US, an album is certified 'platinum' after selling how many copies?

The RIAA introduced the award in 1976; the first went to the Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).

Which album received the first RIAA platinum certification, on 24 February 1976?

Johnnie Taylor's 'Disco Lady' was the first platinum single two months later.

A platinum jubilee marks which anniversary?

Elizabeth II's in 2022 marked 70 years since her accession on 6 February 1952.

Which British crown was the first to be made with a platinum frame?

It was made for her coronation as consort of George VI in 1937.

Which country circulated platinum coins as regular national currency between 1828 and 1845?

Merchants liked them because platinum's high melting point meant they survived house fires that melted gold and silver.

What figure appears on the obverse of the American Platinum Eagle bullion coin?

John Mercanti designed it; the coins are 99.95 percent fine platinum.

Who first patented the platinotype photographic printing process, in 1873?

Platinum prints are prized for their permanence and long tonal range.

How many platinum-group metals are there?

Ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium and platinum cluster together in the periodic table.

Platinum traces were found in gold hieroglyphs on a box from which ancient Egyptian's burial?

It is unclear whether the Egyptians even knew the platinum was there.

Platinum is found in slightly higher abundance at which kind of site on Earth?

Platinum is also somewhat more abundant on the Moon and in meteorites.

Platinum enables which green-energy technology by catalyzing hydrogen and oxygen reactions?

It is central to fuel cell electric vehicles and green hydrogen production.

The standard hydrogen electrode uses an electrode of what?

Its corrosion resistance is the reason.

How does bulk platinum behave in air at any temperature?

Heated wires do lose weight, apparently by forming a thin PtO2 film that decomposes above 500 °C.

Which isotope, 0.012% of natural platinum, alpha-decays with a half-life of 483 billion years?

Its decay gives natural platinum a tiny activity of 16.8 becquerels per kilogram.

What is the OSHA permissible exposure limit for soluble platinum salts?

Long-term exposure to the salts can cause respiratory and skin allergies, though the metal itself is inert in the body.

Which is the most abundant natural isotope of platinum, making up about 33.8 percent of the metal?

It is the only stable platinum isotope with non-zero nuclear spin, making it useful for NMR spectroscopy.

To whom did William Brownrigg present a detailed account of platinum in 1750?

Brownrigg had studied Colombian samples sent from Jamaica by metallurgist Charles Wood in 1741.

The alluvial platinum deposits worked by pre-Columbian peoples lie in which Colombian department?

They remain a source of platinum-group metals; another large alluvial deposit is in Russia's Ural Mountains.

Which Indian state showed evidence of new platinum deposits in groundwater surveys?

Platinum is also somewhat more plentiful on the Moon and in meteorites than in Earth's crust.