Platinum

History

The name platinum mainly derives from the Spanish platina meaning "little silver".

Related Topics:
Spanish - Silver

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Naturally-occurring platinum and platinum-rich alloys have been known for a long time. Though the metal was used by pre-Columbian Indians, the first European reference to platinum appears in 1557 in the writings of the Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484-1558) as a description of a mysterious metal found in Central American mines between Darién (Panama) and Mexico ("up until now impossible to melt by any of the Spanish arts").

Related Topics:
Pre-Columbian - Italian - Julius Caesar Scaliger - Panama

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The Spaniards named the metal "platina," or little silver, when they first encountered it in Colombia. They regarded platinum as an unwanted impurity in the silver they were mining, and often discarded it.

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Platinum was discovered by astronomer Antonio de Ulloa and Don Jorge Juan y Santacilia (1713-1773), both appointed by King Philip V to join a geographical expedition in Peru that lasted from 1735 to 1745. Among other things, Ulloa observed the platina del pinto, the unworkable metal found with gold in New Granada (Colombia). British privateers intercepted Ulloa's ship on the return voyage. Though he was well-treated in England, and even made a member of the Royal Society he was prevented from publishing a reference to the unknown metal until 1748. Before that could happen Charles Wood independently isolated the element in 1741.

Related Topics:
Antonio de Ulloa - Philip V - Peru - New Granada - Colombia - Privateer - Royal Society - 1748 - Charles Wood - 1741

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The alchemical symbol for platinum (shown below) was made by joining the symbols of silver and gold.

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The standard definition of a metre for a long time was based on the distance between two marks on a bar of a platinum-iridium alloy housed at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in Sevres, France. A platinum-iridium cylinder serves to this day as the standard of the kilogram and is housed in the same facility as the metre bar. Platinum is also used in the definition of the Standard hydrogen electrode.

Related Topics:
Metre - Iridium - Bureau International des Poids et Mesures - Sevres - France - Kilogram - Standard hydrogen electrode

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