Platinum Metals Review - Volume 29, Issue 2, 1985

The pollution problem known as acid rain has focused attention on the need to control all major sources of contributing emissions. The use of platinum metal catalysts to control automobile exhaust gases is now well developed but in fact over half the man-made nitrogen oxides exhausted into the atmosphere are emitted from sources other than vehicles, and include power station boilers, industrial boilers and stationary internal combustion engines. Several methods may be used to prevent these emissions, and platinum catalysts, either alone or in combination with one or more of the base metal catalysts currently used, appear to have considerable potential for this application.

Magnetron sputtering technology enables large substrate areas to be coated, and is therefore applicable to the production of solar energy receivers. Co-deposited platinum-alumina graded cermet coatings have been investigated and their great thermal stability in air makes them highly suitable for medium temperature collectors.

During a conference organised by the East Midland Branch of the Institute of Metal Finishing a paper on the electrodeposition of palladium-nickel alloys was presented by Dr. Christoph J. Raub and Dieter Walz of the Forschungsinstitut für Edelmetalle und Metallchemie, West Germany. A review of this paper is presented here.

A range of commodity chemicals and fuels can be generated directly from synthesis gas by ruthenium melt catalysis. Careful selection of the catalyst components enables a wide range of oxygenates to be produced, while other advantages of this flexible process include high productivity and the ease with which the products may be recovered and the catalyst recycled.

Phase diagrams of alloy systems provide essential guidance for designers, metallurgists and engineers involved in the manufacture of metal products. This paper considers the use of computer-based methods of assessment of phase diagrams in two-component systems. Both thermodynamic and phase equilibrium data are used in the analysis to provide a final data set which is as consistent as possible with all the available experimental information. The treatment of the copper-platinum and copper-rhodium systems is described. While this optimisation method is often able to resolve problems within the binary system, the major advantage lies in allowing the estimation of properties in ternary and higher order systems.