The use in unmanned space craft of iridium to encapsulate the radioisotope thermoelectric generators, where temperatures of up to 20OO0C have to be withstood over several years of operation, with possible impact velocities of 90 metres per second, has focused greater attention on the remarkable properties of this member of the platinum group of metals. But these same properties of very high mel...

Nearly all metals, with the exception of gold and platinum, will corrode in an oxidising environment forming compounds such as oxides, hydroxides and sulphides. The degradation of metals by corrosion is a universal reaction, caused by the simple fact that the oxide of a metal has a much lower energy than the metal itself. Hence there is a strong driving force for the oxidation of metals. For ex...

CO oxidation over platinum group metals has been investigated for some eight decades by many researchers and is considered to be the best understood catalytic reaction. Nevertheless, there has been a renewed interest in CO oxidation recently because of its technological importance in pollution control and fuel cells. Removal of COx from automobile exhaust is accomplished by catalytic converters...

The compound 2,11-dithia[3.3]orthocyclophane (L) is a mesocyclic dithioether that can act as a bidentate ligand in different conformations. In the ionic heteroleptic complexes [PtL(eta(4)-cod)][CF(3)SO(3)](2) (1), [RhL(eta(4)-cod)][CF(3)SO(3)] (2), and [IrL(eta(4)-cod)][CF(3)SO(3)] (3) (cod = 1,5-cyclooctadiene), L is coordinated in the anti I conformation both in solution and in the solid stat...

Bacteria can fabricate platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts cheaply, a key consideration of industrial processes and waste decontaminations. Biorecovery of PGMs from wastes is promising but PGM leachates made from metallic scraps are acidic. A two-step biosynthesis 'pre-seeds' metallic deposits onto bacterial cells benignly; chemical reduction of subsequent metal from acidic solution via the se...

Development of effective technologies for clean and sustainable hydrogen energy has attracted great attention recently, as hydrogen is hailed as a promising energy source to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and benet the environment by reducing the emissions of greenhouse and other toxic gases. To this end, an effective and promising approach is based on the electrolysis of water for hydr...

Electrospray ionization (ESI) of methanolic solutions of monomeric nickel(II) acetate, [Ni(CH(3)COO)(2)], and tetrameric platinum(II) acetate, [Pt(4)(CH(3)COO)(8)], leads to the formation of the corresponding methylidyne complexes [M(CH)](+) (M = Ni, Pt), which react with ammonia under C-N coupling. While the product couples M/[CH(4)N](+) and [M(CH(2)N)](+)/H(2) are observed for both metals, hy...

In this Chapter the most popular models described in the literature regarding the oscillatory behaviour of catalytic reactions such as CO oxidation are discussed. In order to explain the experimental observation introduced in Chapter 3, of oscillations between a metallic surface and a surface oxide, a new model is proposed This new model involves two key features: (1) the observation that the o...

All 306 South African platinum refinery workers (116 white, 190 coloured) accepted for employment on grounds of absence of evidence of atopy were investigated using the skin prick test and RAST to detect sensitivity to platinum, palladium, and rhodium salts. RAST studies were made for these, together with HSA and DNP-HSA RAST. Of the 306 workers, 38 had a positive skin prick test to the platinu...