Platinum Metals Review - Volume 27, Issue 2, 1983

Advances in platinum catalyst technology applied to hydrocarbon conversion have resulted in substantial improvements in the selectivity and durability of the processes. However, our understanding of the mechanism of the complex reactions involved, and in particular of their relationship to the physical and chemical properties of the catalyst, remains incomplete. This paper reviews important work carried out over the last ten years on the role of atomic sites on platinum surfaces and also presents for the first time a molecular model of the working platinum catalyst surface.

A platinum catalyst has been developed for the selective hydrogenation of halonitroaromatics. The catalyst performs favourably under a variety of operating conditions without the need for process additives. Satisfactory selectivities have been obtained with a wide variety of substrates and further product purification may be unnecessary.

The activities of the German-born physician Justus Erich Bollmann in securing a supply of Colombian platinum ore for the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston is traced from the time Bollmann settled in London in 1816. An account is also given of Bollmann’s efforts in 1820 and 1821 to obtain for sale on the London market some 40,000 pounds of platinum from the Government of the then newly established Republic of Colombia, efforts which involved negotiations with, and financial advances made to, the first Vice-President of that Republic, Don Francisco Antonio Zea.