By Owen

• Melting Point: 1768.4°C or 3215.1°F• Boiling Point: 3825°C or 6917°F•  Phase at Room Temperature: Solid• Element Classification: Metal• What's in a name? From the Spainsh word for silver,

platina.• Say what? Platinum is pronounced as PLAT-en-em.• Since pure annealed platinum is extremely soft, it is

susceptible to scratching and marring. In order to improve hardness, it is alloyed with a variety of other elements. Platinum jewelry is very popular in Japan, where it is called hakkin.

The fashioning of platinum into fine jewelry began about 1900, but, while this application remains important even today, it was soon used more for industrial uses. Platinum became a very desirable material for contact points in the relays of telephone and other wire communications systems, where it provided long life and a high level of reliability, and platinum, because of its resistance to spark erosion, was incorporated into spark plugs for combat aircraft during World War II.

• Used by the pre-Columbian Indians of South America, platinum wasn't noticed by western scientists until 1735. Platinum can occur free in nature and is sometimes found in deposits of gold-bearing sands, primarily those found in the Ural mountains, Columbia, and the western United States. Antonio de Ulloa and Spaniard Jorge Juan discovered platinum at a scientific expedition. They discovered platinum somewhere between 1736 to 1744.

• Platinum is a soft and dense metal that is very resistant to corrosion. It is used to make jewelry, wire, electrical contacts and laboratory vessels. Platinum is used to coat missile nose cones, jet engine fuel nozzles and other devices that must operate reliably for long periods of time at high temperatures. Platinum resistance wires are used in high temperature electric furnaces. Platinum anodes are used in cathodic protection systems to prevent ships, pipelines and steel piers from corroding in salt water. Fuel cells, devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and water, also use platinum as a catalyst.

Platinum is luring jewelers away from gold after investors’ purchases of bullion to escape stock market turmoil pushed prices to records. Platinum and gold both have very high prices that are very close to each other. In the last few years both gold and platinum have been on top.

Primarily-essentially; mostly; chiefly; principally: They live primarily from farming.

Incorporated- United into one body; combined. Formed into or organized and maintained as a legal

corporation.Anodes-A positively charged electrode, as of an electrolytic

cell, storage battery, or electron tube.Cathodic-A negatively charged electrode, as of an

electrolytic cell, a storage battery, or an electron tubeCatalyst-A substance, usually used in small amounts

relative to the reactants, that modifies and increases the rate of a reaction without being consumed in the process.

Bullion-Gold or silver in the form of bars or ingots.

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