IRIDIUM

Listing description:

Iridium (pronounced /ɨˈrɪdiəm/, i-RID-ee-əm) is the chemical element with atomic number 77, and is represented by the symbol Ir. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second densest element (after osmium) and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C. Although only certain molten salts and halogens are corrosive to solid iridium, finely divided iridium dust is much more reactive and can even be flammable. The most important iridium compounds in use are the salts and acids it forms with chlorine, though iridium also forms a number of organometallic compounds used in catalysis and in research.

^{Detailed Description}

Iridium was discovered in 1803 by Smithson Tennant in London, England, among insoluble impurities in natural platinum from South America. Although it is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust, with annual production and consumption of only three tonnes, it has a number of specialized industrial and scientific applications. Iridium is employed when high corrosion resistance at high temperatures is needed, as in spark plugs, crucibles for recrystallization of semiconductors at high temperatures, electrodes for the production of chlorine in the chloralkali process, and radioisotope thermoelectric generators used in unmanned spacecraft. Iridium compounds also find applications as catalysts for the production of acetic acid. In the automotive industry, iridium is used in high-end after-market sparkplugs as the center electrode, replacing more commonly used metals.

A member of the platinum group metals, iridium is white, resembling platinum, but with a slight yellowish cast. Because of its hardness, brittleness, and very high melting point (the ninth highest of all elements), solid iridium is difficult to machine, form, or work, and thus powder metallurgy is commonly employed instead. It is the only metal to maintain good mechanical properties in air at temperatures above 1600 °C. Iridium has a very high boiling point (11th among all elements) and becomes a superconductor at temperatures below 0.14 K.

Chemical properties

Iridium is the most corrosion-resistant metal known: it is not attacked by almost any acid, aqua regia, molten metals or silicates at high temperatures. It can, however, be attacked by some molten salts, such as sodium cyanide and potassium cyanide, as well as oxygen and the halogens (particularly fluorine) at higher temperatures.

While no binary hydrides of iridium, Ir_xH_y are known, complexes are known that contain IrH4−5 and IrH3−6, where iridium has the +1 and +3 oxidation states, respectively.

History

The discovery of iridium is intertwined with that of platinum and the other metals of the platinum group. Native platinum used by ancient Ethiopians and by South American cultures always contained a small amount of the other platinum group metals, including iridium. Platinum reached Europe as platina ("small silver"), found in the 17th century by the Spanish conquerors in a region today known as the department of Chocó in Colombia. The discovery that this metal was not an alloy of known elements, but instead a distinct new element, did not occur until 1748.

Occurrence

Iridium is one of the least abundant elements in the Earth's crust, having an average mass fraction of 0.001 ppm in crustal rock; gold is 4 times more abundant, platinum is 10 times more abundant, and silver and mercury are 80 times more abundant. Tellurium is about as abundant as iridium, and only three naturally occurring elements are less abundant: rhenium, ruthenium, and rhodium, iridium being 10 times more abundant than the last two. In contrast to its low abundance in crustal rock, iridium is relatively common in meteorites, with concentrations of 0.5 ppm or more. It is thought that the overall concentration of iridium on Earth is much higher than what is observed in crustal rocks, but because of the density and siderophilic ("iron-loving") character of iridium, it descended below the crust and into the Earth's core when the planet was still molten.

Iridium is found in nature as an uncombined element or in natural alloys; especially the iridium–osmium alloys, osmiridium (osmium rich), and iridiosmium (iridium rich). In the nickel and copper deposits the platinum group metals occur as sulfides (i.e. (Pt,Pd)S)), tellurides (i.e. PtBiTe), antimonides (PdSb), and arsenides (i.e. PtAs₂). In all of these compounds platinum is exchanged by a small amount of iridium and osmium. As with all of the platinum group metals, iridium can be found naturally in alloys with raw nickel or raw copper.

Within the Earth's crust, iridium is found at highest concentrations in three types of geologic structure: igneous deposits (crustal intrusions from below), impact craters, and deposits reworked from one of the former structures. The largest known primary reserves are in the Bushveld igneous complex in South Africa, though the large copper–nickel deposits near Norilsk in Russia, and the Sudbury Basin in Canada are also significant sources of iridium. Smaller reserves are found in the United States. Iridium is also found in secondary deposits, combined with platinum and other platinum group metals in alluvial deposits. The alluvial deposits used by pre-Columbian people in the Chocó Department of Colombia are still a source for platinum-group metals. As of 2003 the world reserves had not been estimated.

K–T boundary presence

Main article: Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event

The K–T boundary of 65 million years ago, marking the temporal border between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods of geological time, was identified by a thin stratum of iridium-rich clay. A team led by Luis Alvarez proposed in 1980 an extraterrestrial origin for this iridium, attributing it to an asteroid or comet impact. Their theory, known as the Alvarez hypothesis, is now widely accepted to explain the demise of the dinosaurs. A large buried impact crater structure with an estimated age of about 65 million years was later identified under what is now the Yucatán Peninsula (the Chicxulub crater).

Production

Year	Price ($/ozt)[45][46]
2001	415.25
2002	294.62
2003	93.02
2004	185.33
2005	169.51
2006	349.45
2007	440.00

Iridium is obtained commercially as a by-product from nickel and copper mining and processing. During electrorefining of copper and nickel, noble metals such as silver, gold and the platinum group metals as well as selenium and tellurium settle to the bottom of the cell as anode mud, which forms the starting point for their extraction. In order to separate the metals, they must first be brought into solution. Several methods are available depending on the separation process and the composition of the mixture; two representative methods are fusion with sodium peroxide followed by dissolution in aqua regia, and dissolution in a mixture of chlorine with hydrochloric acid.

After it is dissolved, iridium is separated from the other platinum group metals by precipitating (NH₄)₂IrCl₆ or by extracting IrCl2−6 with organic amines. The first method is similar to the procedure Tennant and Wollaston used for their separation. The second method can be planned as continuous liquid–liquid extraction and is therefore more suitable for industrial scale production. In either case, the product is reduced using hydrogen, yielding the metal as a powder or sponge that can be treated using powder metallurgy techniques.

Annual production of iridium circa 2000 was around 3 tonnes or about 100,000 troy ounces (ozt).^{[note 3][10]} The price of iridium as of 2007 was $440 USD/ozt, but the price fluctuates considerably, as shown in the table. The high volatility of the prices of the platinum group metals has been attributed to supply, demand, speculation, and hoarding, amplified by the small size of the market and instability in the producing countries.

Applications

The global demand for iridium in 2007 was 119,000 troy ounces (3,700 kg), out of which 25,000 ozt (780 kg) were used for electrical applications such as spark plugs; 34,000 ozt (1,100 kg) for electrochemical applications such as electrodes for the chloralkali process; 24,000 ozt (750 kg) for catalysis; and 36,000 ozt (1,100 kg) for other uses.

PRICE

$950/TROY OZ

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