Platinum Metals Review - Volume 16, Issue 1, 1972

As a result of a remarkable piece of international collaboration between three national standards laboratories and seven United States and United Kingdom manufacturers, new reference tables have now been completed for platinum : 10 per cent rhodium-platinum and platinum: 13 per cent rhodium-platinum thermocouples. These new tables take into account the changes in the temperature scale resulting from the introduction of the International Practical Temperature Scale of 1968 (IPTS-68) and also provide reference tables which will be common to both U.S. and U.K. manufacturers and users of thermocouples.

High pressure studies involving hydrogen gas present considerable technological difficulties because of the embrittling effect of hydrogen on constructional materials. In recent work in Warsaw, however, it has been possible to study the absorption of hydrogen by palladium and by a series of palladium alloys at pressures of up to 25,000 atmospheres of hydrogen, and interesting results have been obtained.

Platinum group metal catalysts are incorporated in the Cataheat flameless combustion systems designed by Matthey Bishop to burn hydrocarbon fuels. These systems are safer and more efficient than radiant heaters with an open flame. They are used in portable heaters for a wide range of agricultural, industrial and recreational purposes.

At the Fifth International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry, held in Moscow in August 1971, no fewer than 463 papers were presented, of which 189 were actually delivered orally, together with 11 section lectures, in three parallel sessions. This review can therefore give only a brief account of such a conference and of the many contributions that concerned the platinum metals.