Platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish platina, a diminutive of plata “silver”.
Platinum is a member of the platinum group of elements and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It has six naturally occurring isotopes. It is one of the rarer elements in Earth’s crust, with an average abundance of approximately 5 μg/kg. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some native deposits, mostly in South Africa, which accounts for ~80% of the world production. Because of its scarcity in Earth’s crust, only a few hundred tonnes are produced annually, and given its important uses, it is highly valuable and is a major precious metal commodity.
Characteristics
Physical
Pure platinum is a lustrous, ductile, and malleable, silver-white metal. Platinum is more ductile than gold, silver or copper, thus being the most ductile of pure metals, but it is less malleable than gold.
Its physical characteristics and chemical stability make it useful for industrial applications.Its resistance to wear and tarnish is well suited to use in fine jewellery.
Chemical
Platinum has excellent resistance to corrosion. Bulk platinum does not oxidize in air at any temperature, but it forms a thin surface film of PtO2 that can be easily removed by heating to about 400 °C.
The most common oxidation states of platinum are +2 and +4. The +1 and +3 oxidation states are less common, and are often stabilized by metal bonding in bimetallic (or polymetallic) species. Tetracoordinate platinum(II) compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries. Although elemental platinum is generally unreactive, it is attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulfur. It reacts vigorously with fluorine at 500 °C (932 °F) to form platinum tetrafluoride. Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid, but dissolves in hot aqua regia (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids), to form aqueous chloroplatinic acid, H2PtCl6:
Colour
Platinum is a colour that is the metallic tint of pale grayish-white resembling the metal platinum.
The first recorded use of platinum as a colour name in English was in 1918.
Turning this ore into platinum is a complex process that involves:
- Crushing the ore into small particles.
- Mixing the crushed ore with water and other chemical reagents.
- Blowing air into the mixture to force platinum particles to the top of this chemical soup.
- Collect the froth at the top of the soup, then dry it into a powder.
- Heat the dry powder to extremely high temperatures to remove impurities.
- Apply other chemical processes to further purify the powder, removing any sulfur, iron, nickel etc.
- Dissolve the remaining concentrate with aqua regia (3/4 hydrochloric acid & 1/4 nitric acid).
- Finalize the purification process and turn the remaining mineral concentrate into platinum.
7 Reasons why Platinum is So Expensive and Valuable
Rarity
Platinum is 10 times rarer than gold, with only about 200-250 tons of platinum mined every year, compared to some 3,000 tons of gold.
Platinum jewelry is denser than gold & harder to make
Despite platinum being cheaper than gold ($992 per ounce vs $1750 per ounce), jewelry made from platinum is usually more expensive than gold alternatives.
Platinum is more difficult to turn into jewelry compared to gold.
Platinum is a harder metal to turn into jewelry compared to 14/18k gold and requires its own specialized skill set.
Platinum has many different applications
Most of the reasons platinum is in high demand is because it offers a lot of practical uses that few, or no other metal can accomplish.
High demand
Just like everything else in an economy, platinum is also subject to the invisible hand of supply and demand.
High demand
Just like everything else in an economy, platinum is also subject to the invisible hand of supply and demand.
Difficult manufacturing
Throughout history, gold and silver were the two precious metals that dominated trade and used as stores of value.