How Does Rhodium Work?

Columbia today? The price tag was seven hundred and ninety five pounds worth, a little over one thousand American dollars at the time and over twenty three thousand dollars today. The pair had high hopes for this hunk of rock. A Wallaston believed he could create a new chemical process that would make the solid ore a malleable platinum. Little did Walston know that his Christmas ore was the gift

that would keep on giving. Their sample had secrets of its own, hidden away, a new, rare elemental metal never known to science before then. Today it's one of the most valuable and precious metals on the planet Rhodium. With his chunk of smuggled platinum ore, in a few years Wallaston did what earlier scientists could not. He achieved a

chemical process that isolated platinum and rendered it malleable. As he dissolved the platinum ore in his backyard garden laboratory, he produced both a soluble and a non soluble residue. After precipitating the soluble solution, he noticed reddish salts remained. Red salts are not typical of platinum, and Walaston suspected

something else was present in the sample. Over eighteen oh three and eighteen oh four, Walaston announced that with the sample of platinum ore, he had discovered two other precious metals. One he called polydium and the other rhodium, and the name is rooted in the Greek word for rose. Because of those reddish salts, Rodium is now part of what's known as the platinum group metals, six metals with similar characteristics that are clumped together in the periodic table and

often in deposits in real life. The group consists of rodium and polydium, perhaps obviously platinum, and then ruthenium, iridium, and osmium. Platinum group metals are also considered precious metals alongside gold and silver, a meaning that they're rare and have a high economic value due to a number of traits. They're fairly durable, not very reactive, easily workable or ductile,

and they're shiny. Erodium is an ultra shiny, corrosion resistant metal that has become useful in many industries, including the automobile, jewelry, chemical, and electrical trades, and that usefulness, combined with its scarcity, can keep the price high. Today, the price of rodium is four one hundred dollars in ounce. Compare that to platinum at nine hundred and sixty two bucks anounced or

gold at one thousand, nine hundred and seventy two. Only iridium is higher at four thousand, six hundred dollars an ounce, but in twenty twenty one, rodium was all the way up to twenty nine thousand dollars in ounce. The volatile and high prices are most likely due to new regulations for cleaner emissions in the automobile industry, particularly in China and Europe, combined with supply chain issues during the COVID

nineteen pandemic. When rodium is found, it's never in its pure form, or rather it's almost always collected as a minuscule byproduct of platinum, copper, or nickel refining. South Africa is the largest producer of rodium by way of the country's massive platinum mining operations, which have been called into frequent question of the last ten years due to labor rights and human rights abuses. People have been mining rodium as a byproduct platinum since the nineteen thirties after large

sediments of platinum ore were found in South Africa. Of available rodium, eighty percent is used in catalytic converters in cars to help clean exhaust emissions. Rodium is uniquely exceptional at breaking down nitrous oxide molecules, the brownish, poisonous gas given off by fossil fuel powered cars, trucks, boats, power plants, and turbines, among many other offenders. Though the impact of nitrous oxide emissions cause irreparable damage to our bodies and ozone,

it would be a lot worse without rodium. It's also useful in industrial laboratories as a catalyst for making nitric acid, acetic acid, some kinds of silicone, rubber, and menthol the minti flavor in chewing gum. Because rodium is resistant to corrosion and conducts electrical current easily. It's used as a coating for optic fibers and optical mirrors, headlight reflectors, and electrical material. However, the average human is most likely to

directly encounter rodium in shiny, lustrous jewelry. Even though it's not the easiest metal to work with, it's extremely hard and has a very high melting point at three thousand, five hundred and ninety five degrees fahrenheit or two thousand and thirty five degrees celsius. Before the article this episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke with Sean Peterson, supervisor of Jewelry Manufacturing, Arts, Research and Development at the Gemological

Institute of America. He said a rodium by itself is too hard for general jewelry making purposes. The most common use for rodium is as a plating over other metal alloys, either to help protect against allergies or to improve the color of the jewelry item. Jewelers seek roodium to use in the jewelry making process because it is bright, silvery white in color, and very hard, which can help make

the jewelry more scratch and corrosion resistant. It's also hypo allergenic, which can help those that may be allergic to certain jewelry metal alloys. The con is that the rhodium plating is only a thin layer coating jewelry. This means that over time the roodium will reduce due to wear and tear. Because you need so little rodium to plate a piece of jewelry, it's relatively affordable, though you may have to have it replated once every year or two to keep

its luster up. So keep in mind that the color and shine of a rodium plated piece of jewelry will change over time without that additional cost and work. Today's episode is based on the article roodium is Earth's rarest and most expensive precious metal on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Aleison Trautner. Brains Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.