The commercial production of the platinum along with the rest of the platinum metals is done from the mining and processing of nickel and copper. In these processes, the platinum is obtained as a by product. The noble metals like silver, gold and the platinum group metals along with selenium and tellurium settled down to the floor of the cell as anode mud during electro-refining of copper. It forms the preliminary point for extracting the platinum group metals commercially. If case of the occurrence of pure platinum in placer deposits or other ores, it is separated by using different ways of eliminating the impurities.
As platinum is considerable denser as compared to many of its impurities, the lighter impurities are removed by merely the process of floating them in a water bath where the impurities will get flown away. Platinum is non-magnetic in nature while the nickel and iron are magnetic. To remove these two impurities, an electromagnet is run over the mixture. Many impurities can be burned or melted away without affecting platinum as it has a higher melting point than many other substances. Moreover, platinum is resistant to acids like hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, metal impurities can be easily separated by stirring the mixture in any of these two acids and then obtaining the remaining platinum.
Another widely used method is the processing with aqua regia for the purification for the raw platinum containing platinum, gold, as well as the other platinum group metals. In this procedure, the elements like palladium, gold and platinum are dissolved and on other hand ruthenium, osmium, rhodium and iridium stayed un-reacted. The precipitation of the gold is done by the addition of iron(III) chloride. Once the gold is filtered, the precipitation of platinum is done by the addition of ammonium chloride in form of ammonium chloroplatinate. The platinum is obtained by heating the Ammonium chloroplatinate.
Related posts: