Platinum Metals Review - Volume 26, Issue 1, 1982

To meet the growing requirements for platinum and its allied metals a continuing programme of capital investment, exploration and production has been undertaken by the world’s largest platinum producer, Rustenburg Platinum Mines. These developments provide the majority of many of the platinum group metals required by industrial users throughout the world.

The adequate protection of equipment where over-pressure conditions may occur is imperative, and is becoming the subject of more stringent regulations. The use of bursting discs for this purpose is now well known and they are extensively applied, but it is when conditions are particularly severe that the unique properties of platinum can be relied upon to prevent a disastrous situation arising.

The industrial applications of platinum and palladium in wrought form derive, in large measure, from the unique ability of these metals to maintain their mechanical properties over long periods in oxidising environments at high temperatures. Published data on the strengths of these metals and their alloys is, however, somewhat confusing and often contradictory. A critical appraisal of the data, including some results from experimental work carried out recently in this laboratory, is presented so that the creep-rupture strengths of high purity platinum and palladium can be specified and discussed in terms of environmental sensitivity and of the role played by impurities.

A very substantial amount of additional information has been published concerning hydrides of the platinum group metals over the two decades since the hydrides of palladium and palladium alloys were the subject of an earlier review article in this Journal. In addition to the many articles in the general literature, the subject matter has formed a major part of the programmes of several scientific conferences and of a number of books and monographs appearing over this period. Furthermore, silver-palladium diffusion tubes are incorporated into hydrogen generators built by Johnson Matthey, and utilised for such diverse applications as the hydrogenation of edible oils, manufacture of semiconductors, annealing of stainless steel and the cooling of power station alternators. In view of the considerable interest being shown in both theoretical and technical aspects of these systems this unusually long review is presented, and will be published in parts during the year.

Work is continuing in a number of institutions to develop a second generation of anti-tumour drugs, based upon complex compounds of platinum, that will offer greater selectivity together with a reduction in toxic side-effects. During the course of a three-day meeting held in Bologna in Italy in September, the Ninth International Symposium on the Biological Characterisation of Human Tumours, a paper was presented by Dr. M. J. Cleare of the Johnson Matthey Group Research Centre. A summary of his talk is given here.

In 1805, when malleable platinum was only just becoming available in small quantities, the son of a London cutler and surgical instrument maker who extended his father’s business into the design and manufacture of scientific instruments, made a pair of platinum fruit knives which he asked Sir Joseph Banks, then the President of the Royal Society, to present to King George III and Queen Charlotte.