Platinum Metals Review - Volume 41, Issue 1, 1997

The pollution of groundwater and soils by industrial chemicals is a cause of significant environmental concern. Treatment with palladium is suggested as a means of decontaminating certain occurrences of polluted soil and groundwater. Palladium can be chemically deposited onto zero-valence iron (Fe⁰) and the resulting bimetal is very effective in dechlorinating many of the toxic chemicals, produced as industrial effluents, that are found in soils and groundwater. With a palladium content of 0.05 per cent (w/w), the rate at which trichloroethene is dechlorinated is one to two orders of magnitude faster than with iron alone. Similarly, a bimetal made of palladium/iron readily dechlorinates dichloromethane and polychlorinated biphenyls which are not easily reduced by Fe⁰.

The First Anglo-Dutch Symposium, sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry and including the Ludwig Mond Lecture, was hosted on the 18th September 1996 by the University of Sheffield. This symposium covered a wide range of platinum group metals chemistry, illustrating in particular its continuing importance in catalysis and describing some future industrial uses, thus demonstrating the strength of the work being undertaken in both The Netherlands and the U.K.

Crystallographic and bulk properties of platinum from absolute zero to the melting point are assessed from a review of the literature covering the period 1901 to date. Selected values of thermal expansion are used to calculate the variation with temperature of length changes, lattice parameters, inter-atomic distances, atomic and molar volumes, and density. The crystallographic properties are based mainly on the precise dilatometric thermal expansion data, including corrections to account for thermal vacancy effects at the highest temperatures. Literature values are compared graphically with the selected values, and an Appendix is included to explain some of the terms used.

Alfred Werner (1866–1919), the founder of co-ordination chemistry, was the first Swiss to receive a Nobel prize in chemistry and is best known for his research on complexes of cobalt. However, he also made many valuable contributions to the chemistry of the platinum group metals, some of which involved resolutions that established the configurations of their complexes.