Platinum Metals Review - Volume 34, Issue 4, 1990

A simple optical method for the quantitative determination of dissolved oxygen under physiological conditions is described. The technique involves measurement of room temperature phosphorescence from palladium(II) porphyrins. Such emission is rare for large organic molecules, and its long lifetime, together with the favourable absorption characteristics of the porphyrin receptor, ensure that the phosphorescence can be resolved easily, even in heterogeneous media. Phosphorescence yields and lifetimes are shown to be highly sensitive to the concentration of dissolved oxygen, but do not depend upon the nature of the environment, and can be used separately or together to determine oxygen levels within a biological substrate. This technique should be applicable to all areas of clinical, medicinal and biomedical chemistry.

In this review the advances in and problems associated with the preparation, structure and practical applications of macromolecular platinum metals chelates (MPMC) are presented and assessed. The terminology, classification and nomenclature of MPMC are considered and special attention is paid to their preparation and structural features. Some applications of MPMC are described.

Sponsored by the Dalton Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the fourth International Conference on the Chemistry of the Platinum Group Metals was held at the University of Cambridge on 9th to 13th July 1990. Previous meetings in this series have been held in Bristol (1981), Edinburgh (1984) and Sheffield (1987). More than three hundred delegates, over one third from overseas, attended the meeting for a programme of twenty-seven lectures and almost two hundred poster presentations.

Almost every co-ordination chemist or platinum chemist is familiar with Cossa’s first and second salts, K[PtCl3(NH3)].H2O and KIPtCl 5(NH 3)].H 2O, respectively, yet the life and work of their discoverer is virtually unknown outside of Italy. Cossa made outstanding contributions not only to the chemistry of platinum and to inorganic chemistry in general, but also to agricultural and plant chemistry, mineralogy, petrography, medicine, botany, forensic chemistry, and the analysis of soils and rocks, especially those of his native land.