PALLADIUM[Pd]

Listing description:  

Palladium (pronounced /pəˈleɪdiəm/, pə-LAY-dee-əm) is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pd and an atomic number of 46. Palladium is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal that was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, who named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas.

Detailed description:

Palladium, along with platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs). Platinum group metals share similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of these precious metals.

The unique properties of palladium and other platinum group metals account for their widespread use. One in four goods manufactured today either contain platinum group metals or had platinum group metals play a key role during their manufacturing process.^[2] Over half of the supply of palladium and its congener platinum goes into catalytic converters, which convert up to 90% of harmful gases from auto exhaust (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide) into less harmful substances (nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor). Palladium is found in many electronics including computers, mobile phones, multi-layer ceramic capacitors, component plating, low voltage electrical contacts, and SED/OLED/LCD televisions. Palladium is also used in dentistry, medicine, hydrogen purification, chemical applications, and groundwater treatment. Palladium plays a key role in the technology used for fuel cells, which combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, heat and water.

Ore deposits of palladium and other platinum group metals are rare, and the most extensive deposits have been found in the norite belt of the Bushveld Igneous Complex in the Transvaal in South Africa, the Stillwater Complex in Montana, United States, the Sudbury District of Ontario, Canada, and the Norilsk Complex in Russia. In addition to mining, recycling is also a source of palladium, mostly from scrapped catalytic converters. The numerous applications and limited supply sources of palladium result in palladium drawing considerable investment interest.

History

Palladium was discovered by William Hyde Wollaston in 1803. This element was named by Wollaston in 1804 after the asteroid Pallas, which had been discovered two years earlier. Wollaston found palladium in crude platinum ore from South America by dissolving the ore in aqua regia, neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide, and precipitating platinum as ammonium chloroplatinate with ammonium chloride. He added mercuric cyanide to form the compound palladium cyanide, which was heated to extract palladium metal.

Palladium chloride was at one time prescribed as a tuberculosis treatment at the rate of 0.065 g per day (approximately one milligram per kilogram of body weight). This treatment did have many negative side-effects, and was later replaced by more effective drugs.^[6]

In the run up to 2000, Russian supply of palladium to the global market was repeatedly delayed and disrupted^[8] because the export quota was not granted on time, for political reasons. The ensuing market panic drove the palladium price to an all-time high of $1100 per troy ounce in January 2001.^[9] Around this time, the Ford Motor Company, fearing auto vehicle production disruption due to a possible palladium shortage, stockpiled large amounts of the metal purchased near the price high. When prices fell in early 2001, Ford lost nearly US$1 billion.^[10] World demand for palladium increased from 100 tons in 1990 to nearly 300 tons in 2000. The global production of palladium from mines was 222 metric tons in 2006 according to USGS data.

Occurrence

Palladium is found in the rare minerals cooperite^[14] and polarite.

PRICE

$ 886.25/TROY OZ

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