Fun with the PGMs

[Lou]

Figured I should upload some photos of what I've been doing.

First one shows me doing (I think?) an inquart with sterling silver on some gold. I forget what exactly it is, but you can see it's pretty hot in there!


Second one shows my friend and I melting about 10g of Pt just last night. That photo looks really dark because it is through a welder's lens so that the camera could handle the light.

Third photo shows what it looks like without the welder's mask.

This next one shows some rhodium floating on top of mercury.

 

[Noxx]

Nice nice nice !

 

[lazersteve]

Very nice Lou.

I like your torch setup.

Steve

 

[Lou]

It's done on kiln brick so most of the heat stays put quite nicely.

It's nice to notice just how white the rhodium is compared to mercury. Mercury and platinum both have about the same sheen to them, in my opinion. Rhodium is much white, almost there with silver.

The last photo is one taken when out to dinner with a Blackberry's camera so it doesn't do them justice. Platinum cools with an interesting swirl, whereas any rhodium that I've melted doesn't have a swirl, but rather crystalline plates all over it. It's much harder to melt than platinum is, 5g of Pt would easily melt under the flame while 5g of Rh melts on the top (and sparks!) but the bottom just sinters.

I also have a nice photo of the ''rhodium red'' produced after a bisulfate fusion.

Lou

 

[Anonymous]

is the rhodium from cats?

 

[agpodt77339]

What I'm wondering is why you would bring $32,500 of Rhodium to dinner.

 

[skippy]

What I'm wondering is why you would bring $32,500 of Rhodium to dinner.

Because he can 8) .

 

[Lou]

The rhodium is not from cats, I wish it was in fact as it would've been cheaper. This came from ammonium hexachlororhodate. I have several sources on old, ''expired'', PGM salts. I also bought some H2PtCl6 (quite a bit of that actually, about 547g worth) off of another source but it didn't reduce to what I thought it would; it was quite old and hydrated. I have a cool cell phone photo of some platinum sponge done by the hydrazine reduction. I say cool because of its mass. I've never ever, ever unintentionally had any metal come out to an even number on a balance, so it was pretty cool! I'll upload it sometime.


I was buying a lot of Pt, Pd, Rh, and Au last week thinking they would go up. And they did! Hooray for good guesswork! Actually, as much as I'd like to claim that I ''knew'' for a fact they were going up, it was more because I found an excellent buyer for the material that pays exceedingly well on the PGMs, and more if fabricated. Now I can justify spending a lot of money on feedstock because I know I can buy at 80-89% of spot and make a tidy percentage on them.

Good point agpodt. Why indeed would I have that much money with me and not safe at home in the safe? Well, obviously I like to leave a big tip Actually, it is because I was at dinner with the man buying it, and that is his big hand not mine. I would far rather deliver something of that value in person and put it in his hand myself than chance shipping with insurance, which is nerve-torture for me. And he also just happened to be in my town so I took advantage of his proximity.

 

[JustinNH]

Very nice!