Platinum Metals Review - Volume 3, Issue 4, 1959

The great advantages of heavy water as a moderator in nuclear reactors have been very largely offset by the difficulties of establishing a satisfactory and economical manufacturing process. This article reviews possible methods of preparation by catalytic exchange, with particular reference to a process, recently developed in Germany, for the enrichment of heavy water by high pressure exchange between hydrogen and an aqueous platinum catalyst suspension.

In the handling of molten glass in platinum or platinum alloy vessels, wetting of the metal by the glass is a factor of importance. During the past few years studies have been made in the United States, Germany and Russia on this subject from different points of view, but it is evident that there is a direct relationship between the affinity for oxygen and the wettability of the surface.

Electrochemical methods of preparing inorganic chemical products are well known, and the reactions taking place at anode and cathode are well understood. In the organic sphere an increasing interest is developing in electrolytic methods of preparation, but the processes are neither so widely used as yet, nor are the principles so well clarified. Dr. Allen, who is Director of the Physical Research Laboratories of CIBA, has devoted much energy and enthusiasm to studies in organic electrochemistry and he and his colleagues have devised a number of preparative methods for pharmaceutical products or intermediates based upon anodic oxidation and allied electrolytic processes. In this article he reviews the mechanism of these reactions and outlines some of the important syntheses capable of being effected with the aid of platinum anodes.

The first important source of platinum to be discovered was in the western part of what is now the Republic of Colombia, then part of the Spanish American colonies and known as New Granada. This article recounts the early history and exploitation of these deposits, which have been worked continuously since the earliest expeditions of the Spanish Conquistadores.