Archive for the ‘Precious Metals’ Category

Silver: Precious Metal With The Highest Thermal And Electrical Conductivity
Silver is generally described as a soft, white, lustrous metallic chemical element. It occurs naturally in its pure form, as an alloy with other metallic elements (especially gold), and in chlorargyrite and other minerals. As one of three coinage metals (the other two being copper and gold), silver is very malleable and ductile.
Of the different metals, silver is known to have the highest thermal conductivity. Similarly of the different known elements, [...]

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The metallic chemical elements collectively known as precious metals are called as such because of their extreme rarity and high economic value. Precious metals occur naturally or are by-products of the processing of other less rare metals.
In order of increasing mass abundance (parts per billion), the precious metals are rhenium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, gold, platinum, palladium, and silver. These metals are not radioactive and are mostly used for industrial purposes and for jewelry.
Still, precious metals have some safety issues [...]

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Arranged by name alphabetically, ruthenium is the last of six metallic elements in the platinum group. This precious metal is characterized as being both polyvalent and versatile. In fact, it is known to be more versatile than any of the other five precious metals in the platinum group.
A hard, white metal, ruthenium is known to have four crystal modifications. While it does not tarnish under normal temperature, it does oxidize readily when exposed to air. It can be plated by [...]

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In 1803, the English physicist and chemist William Hyde Wollaston discovered a chemical element that is today considered the most expensive of the precious metals. This precious metal, which belongs to the platinum group metals, is rhodium. With its current price of around 1,000 U.S. dollars per troy ounce, rhodium is about five times costlier than platinum.
Wollaston’s discovery of rhodium was made possible with the use of crude platinum ore. He first dissolved the ore in nitro-hydrochloric acid (also called [...]

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In the periodic table of elements, rhenium is found as a third-row transition metal in group 7. Known to be one of the rarest precious metals in the Earth’s crust, rhenium has an average concentration of 1 part per billion. It is obtained mainly as a by-product of the refinement of two other chemical elements – copper and molybdenum.
Rhenium was discovered as a trace element in the mineral columbite and in platinum ores. Three German chemists – Otto Berg and [...]

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