Our ring example to right is made in palladium .925 silver and engraved using a Script font style. The Raised
Border rings look expensive cast in a our new palladium .925 silver you can see to the right. Palladium serves many a practical purpose besides its obvious beauty. Since palladium .925 sterling silver is made without zinc or copper it will not tarnish and will offer a bright platinum color that standard sterling silver does not. The down side of having your ring made with copper alloy for which most standard sterling silvers have is that it can also turn the ring and finger a shade of green that most people dislike. There are other alloys designed to not to tarnish but the drawbacks are not good either, one big one being they are so soft that they become misshapen with time unless they have been professionally hardened. Palladium is the super problem solver regarding these matters, palladium .925 silver is the jewelers friend when it comes to providing a nice ductile non allergenic metal to alloy with silver. Customers really like the way palladium silver looks and are impressed with its durability after having worn their ring a while. Palladium is also a designer material meaning it is sold in very high end jewelry stores because of its special qualities. Durability of a palladium .925 silver ring is plenty tough enough for every day wear.
Palladium (pronounced \pe-‘lä-de--em\) is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal that was
discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, who named it palladium after the asteroid Pallas,
which in turn, was named after the epithet of the goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew
the giant Pallas. The symbol for palladium is Pd, and its atomic number is 46. Palladium, along
with platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as
the platinum group metals (PGMs). PGMs share similar chemical properties, but palladium is
unique in that it has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of these precious metals.
Incredibly, when palladium is at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, it can absorb up to
900 times its own volume of hydrogen, which makes palladium an efficient and safe storage
medium for hydrogen and hydrogen isotopes. Palladium is also tarnish resistant, electrically stable
and resistant to chemical erosion as well as intense heat.
The unique properties of palladium and other PGMs account for their widespread use. One in four
goods manufactured today either contain PGMs or had PGMs play a key role during their
manufacturing process. Over half of the supply of palladium and its sister metal 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’s precious metal qualities and appearance generate significant
consumption in the luxury jewelry market. 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, groundwater treatment, and it 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 PGMs 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, USA, 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.
Palladium itself has occasionally been used as a precious metal in jewelry, as replacement for
platinum or white gold. This is due to its naturally white properties giving it no need for a
rhodium plating. It is slightly whiter, much lighter and about 12% harder. Similar to gold,
palladium can be beaten into a thin leaf form as thin as 100 nm (1/250,000 in). Like platinum, it
will develop a hazy patina over time. Unlike platinum, however, palladium will discolor at
soldering temperatures, become brittle with repeated heating and cooling, and react with strong
acids.
It can also be used as a substitute for nickel when making white gold. Palladium is one of three
most-used metals that can be alloyed with gold to produce white gold. (Nickel and silver can
also be used.) Palladium-gold is a much more expensive alloy than nickel-gold but is
hypoallergenic and holds its white color better.
When platinum was declared a strategic government resource during World War II, many jewelry
bands were made out of palladium. As recently as September 2001, palladium was more
expensive than platinum and rarely used in jewelry also due to the technical obstacle of casting.
However the casting problem has been resolved, and its use in jewelry has increased because of a
large spike in the price of platinum and a drop in the price of palladium.
Prior to 2004, the principal use of palladium in jewelry was as an alloy in the manufacture of
white gold jewelry, but, beginning early in 2004 when gold and platinum prices began to rise
steeply, Chinese jewelers began fabricating significant volumes of palladium jewelry. Johnson
Matthey estimated that, in 2004 with the introduction of palladium jewelry in China, demand for
palladium for jewelry fabrication was 920,000 ounces, or approximately 14% of the total
palladium demand for 2004, an increase of almost 700,000 ounces from 2003. This growth
continued during 2005, with estimated worldwide jewelry demand for palladium of about 1.4
million ounces, or almost 21% of net palladium supply, again with most of the demand centered in
China.
