Platinum Metals Review - Volume 40, Issue 3, 1996

Molecular isomerism has been known about for well over 100 years and forms a very important part of organic chemistry. It was one of the phenomena from which the Alsatian chemist, Alfred Werner, working, often with platinum group metals, at the University of Zürich, Switzerland (Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1918) derived his ‘theory of co-ordination’in 1893 (1). However, more recently there has been a vast increase in the amount of work done on isomerism of co-ordination compounds, especially concerning chiral structures (2). The present paper describes some new developments on platinum metals complexes with chiral ligands derived from terpenes, where for the first time the chirality at metal centres can be controlled in a large number of compounds.

In February 1996, physicists at the University of Bayreuth claimed a world record for producing the lowest temperature yet achieved when they announced the results of their work with platinum. They cooled 31.4 grams of platinum to 2 millionths of a degree Celsius above absolute zero temperature, -273.15°C. In this paper they describe the theory and the practical work behind this accomplishment. Research in low temperature physics involves the construction of detailed and precise knowledge of the atomic and nuclear structures and their interactions in atoms. Some effects due to atomic and nuclear structure, particularly magnetic effects, are only seen at very low temperatures; however their effects have consequences at higher temperatures, although these are not usually observed. Thus, this and other low temperature work is contributing to a fundamental understanding of the magnetic behaviour of materials.

For many years we have been studying the reactions of carbon monoxide with chlorocomplexes of the platinum metals in various solutions, such as hydrochloric acid. These hydrocarbonylation reactions result in the formation of various platinum metals carbonyl complexes. Hydrocarbonylation has been used to extract the platinum group metals from the anode muds which remain after the production of copper and nickel. The processes involved, which are described below, produce no waste and therefore do not require special reagents or apparatus. This makes their use very effective for the metallurgy of the platinum group metals. In this paper we discuss the general results of these investigations and some of their applications, such as in the production of powders and catalysts, for which the hydrocarbonylation process is suitable.

This short review was written to celebrate simultaneously the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of ruthenium by K. K. Klaus, and the bicentenary of his birth. A personal and (necessarily) selective overview of the highlights of the past decade of ruthenium chemistry is presented, and an attempt is made to place these in an historical perspective.