From: Terry Blanton and prior post of Frederick Sparber > Did F&P ever tell what was so special about their Palladium?
ANS: They probably did not have a clue, over and above what they were told by the supplier. Antimony could very well be the answer, as Fred suggests !! or at least part of it. Palladium Antimonide Telluride is apparently a commonplace ore for Pd extraction; and antimony has been long acknowledged to be in most bulk alloys: http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/dynamic/question/view/10469 They often list and lump trace elements together and do not break down the analysis. If there is 3% trace elements and 10 elements are listed, that does not mean that one of them cannot be 2.9%, and the other 9 the .1% ... to use an extreme example. One suspects that following the "incident" in question, greater pains would have been taken to eliminate antimony. Antimony is a known explosive for 150 years, and the liability insurer knows that. Without a doubt, this "incident" would have been very alarming to all suppliers of electrodes as they are not interested in any experiment, nor should they be, so much as they are concerned with *avoiding liability* should an explosion end up taking the life of a PhD professor or causing major damage. Can you imagine the kind of monetary judgment that a jury would return against the supplier of metal if they knowingly let an explosive material, even in small amounts, be used in their alloy - and it caused a death? Ans: Probably a lot more the $20 million verdict which MacDonald's got slapped with, for a superficial coffee burn. The death verdict would not be later reduced like the burn verdict, either. Repeat 1) Sb is a known explosive. 2) A large explosion occurred 3) Pd "can" and sometimes does contain trace Sb 4) You have liability insurance, and the insurer hears about the explosion 5) Sb is thereafter totally eliminated 6) There are no subsequent explosions Did I miss anything? other than 7) This is total conjecture on the part of a possibly misinformed observer Not to mention, the expected response... 8) They would never admit to any of this, even if all seven of the above were true; instead they would focus on #7 and hope that the incident is quickly forgotten. Ergo. It stands to reason that if trace amounts of Sb were immediately removed by all suppliers of Pd electrodes, following the "incident", and the liability trail was well-covered in order to avoid problems, should any older metal be used to cause another incident - then that could very well end up being why the situation has not occurred again. And part of the reason why OU electrodes are not as reliable as the could be. Obviously "something" is going on besides an Sb reaction, but that reaction could have been a part of the earlier success. As we stand now, the older metal never resurfaced as a problem, and all newer metal has no Sb as a trace element. BTW, does anyone know for sure that the suppliers, during this time period, did not repurchase or swap-out older Pd metal in exchange for new? They likely would not have told the purchaser why, but did this happen? As for the future. It certainly would be worth someone's effort.... being --extremely careful-- and taking every precaution, in light of the explosion potential, to plate out some few milligrams of Sb onto a CF cathode and then observe what happens (from a distance) in an electrolysis cell. Jones
