[HN Gopher] Liquid platinum at room temperature: possible revolu...
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Liquid platinum at room temperature: possible revolution in
industrial chemistry
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 161 points
Date : 2022-06-07 13:23 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| Metacelsus wrote:
| The title should say "platinum dissolved in liquid gallium".
| xxs wrote:
| and it's gallium, known to dissolve a lot of other metals as
| well. Copper and stainless steel are no go - for gallium alloys
| are even more corrosive (than pure Ga). Nickel is likely ok - I
| suppose the properties of the Ga/Pt are rather unknown.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Gallium makes alloys with quite a few metals that are liquid at
| room temperature. This stuff is used as a replacement for
| mercury in thermometers:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galinstan
| jkqwzsoo wrote:
| Or even "trace platinum dissolved in liquid gallium". The
| solubility at "room temp" (40 @C is quite hot for a room) is
| only about ~50 ppm. It's kind of like calling sea water "room-
| temperature liquid sodium chloride".
| wolfi1 wrote:
| 40degC in that regard is room temperature
| ianai wrote:
| Whinging about titles gets taken a little far here sometimes.
| From the article:
|
| "But without the platinum there, it doesn't happen. This is
| completely different from any other catalysis anyone has
| shown, that I'm aware of. And this is something that can only
| have been shown through the modeling."
|
| Likening this to sea water leaves a lot to be desired.
| gopalv wrote:
| > This is completely different from any other catalysis
| anyone has shown, that I'm aware of
|
| The part right before that is much more interesting. I
| quote >> The platinum is actually a little
| bit below the surface and it's activating the gallium atoms
| around it. So the magic is happening on the gallium under
| the influence of platinum.
|
| So the gallium is doing the catalysis, but only when a
| platinum atom is somewhere around the gallium - spooky
| action at a distance stuff.
|
| With Gallium doing the work, that explains "why we need so
| little platinum" detail.
|
| Actual paper here -
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-022-00965-6
|
| The specific catalysis they're doing is "electrochemical
| methanol oxidation", so I assume this is a direct Methanol
| fuel cell catalyst.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Hopefully, someone is trying this in a LENR cell.
| sumy23 wrote:
| Yes, especially because the notable part is that the liquid
| mixture is acting as a catalyst in the same way that the
| solid platinum was.
|
| "It's kind of like calling sea water "room-temperature
| liquid sodium chloride"." It would be extremely impressive
| if you could make sodium chloride thousands of times more
| potent by dissolving it in water.
| benreesman wrote:
| It's human nature that condemns us to these nerd anatomy
| measuring exercises. I've personally long since accepted
| that.
|
| But in theory it could be a competition to build up, rather
| than tear down, things that most commenters don't know jack
| shit about anyways.
|
| C'est la vie.
| _Microft wrote:
| D'oh, I might be a bit disillusioned by headlines of reporting
| on superconductor research - my initial reaction to the
| headline's ,,at room temperature" was ,,At which pressure?"
| spullara wrote:
| My exact initial thought.
| [deleted]
| jhart99 wrote:
| One really tricky part of this is going to be that gallium alloys
| or otherwise attacks a LOT of metals including aluminum and
| steel. Still should be fine in glass or maybe there is a
| passivation trick that can prevent gallium attacking the
| surfaces.
|
| Otherwise platinum on carbon (and now platinum/gallium alloy) can
| do lots of useful reactions mostly hydrogenations.
| philjohn wrote:
| It was a fun experiment showing my kids what some leftover
| Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut did to a soda can.
| kurthr wrote:
| Don't get that anywhere near your wedding ring!
| girvo wrote:
| Pt/C and Pd/C can also do super neat hydrogen rearrangements.
| Fascinating catalysts. Though they like to catch fire when in
| contact with air, annoyingly.
| igravious wrote:
| "To create an effective catalyst, the researchers needed to use a
| ratio of less than 0.0001 platinum to gallium. And most
| remarkably of all, the resulting system proved to be over 1,000
| times more efficient than its solid-state rival [...] Using
| advanced computational chemistry and modeling, their colleagues
| at RMIT, led by Professor Salvy Russo, were able to identify that
| the platinum never becomes solid, right down to the level of
| individual atoms. [...] "They were always separated by gallium
| atoms. There is no solid platinum forming in this system." [...]
| Surprisingly, it's actually the gallium that does the work of
| driving the desired chemical reaction, acting under the influence
| of platinum atoms in close proximity."
|
| Oh dear Lord, maybe the homeopathic cranks have been on to
| something all along!
| wolfi1 wrote:
| for homeopaths that's not enough, they begin at 0,00000000001
| ianai wrote:
| My naive take is liquid phase is higher energy than solid
| phase. The gallium here actually keeps the little amount of
| platinum liquid by diluting those platinum atoms into gallium-
| surrounding the platinum so it can't solidify. Thus the
| catalytic effects are more like a liquid platinum catalyst than
| solid. Neat trick that probably wasn't obvious outside of new
| methods.
|
| Edit-also note, this may be more like alchemy. They're seeing
| the atoms on the surface performing the catalytic effect but
| the platinum resides below the surface. So the nearby platinum
| atoms are making the gallium mimic platinum properties.
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| In solid state chemistry, hemeopathy is actually true.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Can't help but think of Tim Minchin's "Storm".
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Fancy that.
| danuker wrote:
| Check out silicon doping.
|
| > When on the order of one dopant atom is added per 100 million
| atoms, the doping is said to be low or light.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_(semiconductor)
| xwdv wrote:
| Do they drink Gallium?
| soperj wrote:
| yes, but first the dilute it with water until there's no
| gallium left.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| Given that Gallium is basically non-toxic and so is platinum,
| it probably wouldn't be the end of the world unless you
| chugged like a pint?
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| What would be the different effects on the human body of
| drinking 10g vs 100g vs 1000g (ml) of platinum or gallium?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If it is Platinum you go bankrupt.
| jhgb wrote:
| But that only affects your body if you're made of money.
| Natsu wrote:
| Apparently a lethal dose is somewhere around 140g because
| it reacts with stomach acid to form gallium trichloride
| which is poisonous:
|
| https://yesdirt.com/is-gallium-toxic/
|
| Some compounds of it may have medical uses, though:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898053/
|
| That said, people have swallowed even crazier things,
| like when they used to use mercury (!!!) as a laxative:
|
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/following-
| lewi...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > 1000g (ml)
|
| Water has a density of 1 g/mL, most other fluids we
| ingest are close, but gallium weighs 5g per milliliter
| and platinum over 20 g/ml.
|
| In purely mechanical considerations, 1000 ml of platinum
| would weigh 21.4 kg or almost 50 lbs. I'm not a doctor,
| but I imagine the stomach is not able to hold that much
| weight!
| db65edfc7996 wrote:
| There are accounts of people drinking mercury (13.5 g/mL)
| to feel it sloshing around in their stomach.
| tillinghast wrote:
| I just hope they can figure out how to suspend it in worthless
| bits of gold.
| [deleted]
| techmba wrote:
| Time to get some self sealing stem bolts.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| Is one possible application much cheaper catalytic converters?
| RobLach wrote:
| TLDR
|
| Mixing platinum with gallium lets you get some of the desirable
| catalyst properties of platinum; with less platinum and as a
| liquid at lower temperatures; i.e much cheaper.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| And by "less platinum" they mean 0.01% as much platinum to
| achieve the same level of catalyzation.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I'm a complete novice at such things, so pardon the dumb
| question.
|
| Is gallium significantly cheaper than platinum?
| siver_john wrote:
| Yes, ludicrously so, platinum is one of the most expensive
| metals.
|
| Edit: For actual values (per gram), Gallium ~0.50 USD,
| Platinum ~33.22 USD
| xxs wrote:
| yes like 60-70times cheaper
| colechristensen wrote:
| Gallium is produced from the waste streams of Aluminum
| production (primarily at least), and a whole lot of it just
| isn't extracted and left as waste.
|
| Platinum is quite a lot more valuable than gold, found in
| similar deposits, and rather rare. (you could say it is also
| produced from gold production waste streams and be mostly
| correct, it used to just be discarded long ago, but now it is
| very highly valued)
| topher515 wrote:
| I'm not familiar with how pricing precious metals works,
| but it looks like, as of this moment, gold is priced about
| 2x more than platinum[1]! Presumably these prices have
| quite a bit of variability, and gold and platinum switch
| places sometimes? (Although your main point about gallium
| being _way_ cheaper than gold/platinum holds for sure.)
|
| [1] https://www.suissegold.eu/en/charts/platinum
| foobarian wrote:
| Another neat point for gallium is that it's fairly non-
| toxic, easy to get, and a ton of fun to play with. You
| can melt it with your hands!
| mrfusion wrote:
| Could this make fuel cells common place? Is platinum the main
| cost driver?
| wolfi1 wrote:
| for fuel cells not really, for the electrolysis part (ie
| generation of hydrogen) it could be interesting
| ianai wrote:
| Well it's a liquid. My understanding of fuel cells is they need
| an ionic exchange membrane that the hydrogen nuclei pass
| through while the electrons do some work in a circuit to the
| other side. At the very least this gives us an idea of how
| being better able to search quantum interactions/"scenes" just
| might make a lot of technological impossible s suddenly
| possible.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Could we bubble the hydrogen through the liquid?
| ianai wrote:
| What's going to push the electrons anywhere?
| ianai wrote:
| Warning, I'm talking about stuff I know way too little
| about:
|
| So I wonder whether being liquid makes this less helpful
| in a fuel cell. If I understand fuel cell chemistry
| enough, platinum would be on either side of the actual
| proton exchange membrane to form the anode and cathode. I
| see a liquid being problematic in that scenario as it
| would slosh around instead of making a circuit.
|
| More helpful would be some sort of solid state of
| platinum (preferably something cheaper) on either side
| that conducted the electrons away to the poles.
|
| But this definitely shows there's interesting stuff to be
| found with these methods. Might just someday find that
| perfect fuel cell material.
| Victerius wrote:
| The real question:
|
| Does it have military applications?
| wrycoder wrote:
| Catalytic converters, so the tanks will pollute less.
| [deleted]
| Vladimof wrote:
| "the one that needed to be around 10% expensive platinum to work"
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