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What
the name means:
Palladium was named after an asteroid that
had been recently discovered in 1803. The
asteroid, that had been named Pallas, had
itself been named after the Greek god of
wisdom, Pallas Athene.
Who
identified
palladium? In
1802 a British scientist, William Hyde
Wollaston, extracted an unidentified metal
from a sample of platinum ore that had come
from Brazil. Instead of publishing his work
in a scientific journal, he posted an
anonymous avert offering to sell the new
metal. The sample was bought by an Irish
scientist called Richard Chenevix. In fact,
Chenevix bought more samples of the metal
that he analysed and concluded that it was
not a new metal but a simple alloy of known
metals.
Chenevix addressed the Royal Society and
Wollaston, still incognito, wrote
letters defending his identification of a
new element. Eventually, in 1905, once the
debate had concluded that a new element had
been identified, Wollaston owed up that he
was the correspondent.
About
palladium:
Palladium is found as the free metal,
mostly associated with platinum, mercury,
nickel and copper ores. It is quite rare in
the Earth’s crust. It can be found alloyed
to gold creating “white gold”. Palladium is
a silvery metal that does not corrode in
the air. Two of its main uses are in making
jewellery and precision medical
instruments.
It
has one very interesting property in that
it is able to absorb hydrogen gas. |
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