oa Platinum Group Metals Research from a Global Perspective

Analysis of the non-patent scientific literature can be used to reveal trends in platinum group metals (pgms) research. In this article, a study was carried out using the Chemical Abstracts database on key terms related to the pgms for the years 1998 and 2008, revealing an increase in research during this time period across most of the pgms both globally and especially in China. Platinum and ruthenium showed the most growth with areas such as nanotechnology and magnetic memory becoming particularly significant for ruthenium. In China, the fields of electrochemistry, and energy conversion technologies including fuel cells, were among those showing growth.