Platinum Metals Review - Volume 26, Issue 3, 1982

Platinum alloys containing gold exhibit marked non-wetting characteristics with molten glasses. Simple gold-palladium alloys, however, are relatively weak while those that have rhodium added to increase their strength can be difficult to work, and also suffer from embrittlement during service. Now the binary alloys can be dispersion strengthened with zirconia to produce a material with the ductility of the simple binary and the higher hot strengths of rhodium-containing ternary alloys. This dispersion strengthened gold-platinum alloy has enhanced resistance to progressive contamination and offers a longer service life. It is being used successfully for specialised applications in the glass industry, for which it has potential, as well as for the apparatus in which samples for X-ray fluorescence analysis are prepared.

Palladium and palladium-based materials are being increasingly accepted as substitutes for gold in contacts for separable electronic connectors. Since 1975 the favourable cost of palladium relative to gold has stimulated research in many areas of contact technology, including manufacturing processes, contact phenomena, testing and connector design. This has resulted in the development of several new materials systems involving electrodeposited coatings, clad inlays and weldments of palladium, palladium-silver alloys, gold-palladium-silver compositions and composite coatings with other metals that are equivalent to all-gold systems in many applications. This review traces the history of research on palladium for use in connectors, and summarises important results of studies of the environmental, tribological and contact properties of palladium materials.

At the Spring Meeting of the Electrochemical Society, held in Montreal, Canada during May, twenty-three papers were presented on a variety of topics concerned with fuel cell development. The trend in electro-catalysts for this application is clearly towards platinum alloys rather than to alternative metals.

Hydrogen absorption by series of palladium alloys with several other metals has now been quite extensively investigated with reference to systematic alterations of pressure-composition relationships, other related thermodynamic factors and various physical parameters. Hydrogen permeation has been an important area of both academic and technological interest with relation, for example, to effecting reductions of deformations associated with phase transitions, while retaining the high values of hydrogen solubilities and hydrogen diffusion coefficients in palladium at convenient temperatures.