Platinum family metals ruthenium

Ruthenium is most often combined with platinum or palladium in alloys. Electrical contacts, devices for measuring very high and very low temperatures, and medical instruments are often made from ruthenium alloys. Ruthenium is also used in alloys with other platinum family metals to make jewelry and art objects. This use is limited, however, because of the high cost of ruthenium metal. 

The most successful class of active ingredient for both oxidation and reduction is that of the noble metals silver, gold, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. Platinum and palladium readily oxidize carbon monoxide, all the hydrocarbons except methane, and the partially oxygenated organic compounds such as aldehydes and alcohols. Under reducing conditions, platinum can convert NO to N2 and to NH3. Platinum and palladium are used in small quantities as promoters for less active base metal oxide catalysts. Platinum is also a candidate for simultaneous oxidation and reduction when the oxidant/re-ductant ratio is within 1% of stoichiometry. The other four elements of the platinum family are in short supply. Ruthenium produces the least NH3 concentration in NO reduction in comparison with other catalysts, but it forms volatile toxic oxides. 

Platinum is one member of a family of six elements, called the platinum metals, which almost always occur together, Before the discovery of the sister elements, the term platinum was applied to an alloy with Pt as the dominant metal, a practice that persists to some degree even today. The major properties of the platinum metals are given in Table 1 See also Iridium Osmium Palladium Rhodium and Ruthenium. 

In Group VIII, each position instead of being filled by a single element is occupied by a group of three elements. Thus there appear in triads iron, cobalt, and nickel ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium and osmium, iridium, and platinum. In this group there is no subdivision into families, but all the members are heavy metals. 

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