For whom platinum was named?

Answer 1

The name platinum is known to practically everyone, but few have actually seen it. It is well known to be rare and expensive. Chemistry texts give limited space to the platinum metals, though their important catalytic properties are always mentioned. The history of platinum is very imperfectly treated, even in encyclopedias, and many misconceptions are current. Platinum is not a silvery metal. it is grey and is not found as bright, attractive nuggets like gold. For these reasons, I have thought that an article on platinum might be informative.

In 1748, Don Antonio de Ulloa published in Europe an account of his travels in New Spain in 1735. He brought to notice a heavy black sand that had been known for some two centuries in the placer gold operations in New Granada (Colombia and Panama), which he called platina del Pinto."little silver of the river Pinto." It was certainly not very usable. If you hammered on it, you got a hammered black powder. If you heated it, you got a hot black powder, and no furnace then could fuse it. Apparently it could be dissolved in molten gold, but decolourized and ruined the gold and so was forbidden in trade by the Spanish colonial authorities. In fact, it was thrown away with the contaminated Mercury used in the recovery of gold. The metal was not much used by pre Coumbian natives, unless they liked heavy black sand. They could have hammered out the very rare nuggets, however. The report that it was used by the Egyptians is probably erroneous; they were not near any sources, and platinum was never mentioned in ancient times. Also, Ulloa did not discover platinum; he merely reported it.

Because of its chance association with gold in placers, it may have been mentioned in antiquity, but was not recognized as a metal or used for any purpose. As a heavy sand (density 14-19 g/cc in the native state) unaffected by chemical processes, it accumulated in placers like gold, and indeed in the same places. However, it is much rarer than gold, and does not have the same origin. Both metals are freed when the rocks containing them weather, but they come from different sources. Gold comes from veins of silica, and is deposited hydro-thermally by active fluids. Platinum is present in the ultra-basic rocks associated with plate boundaries serpentine, olivine and so forth. Like diamonds, platinum comes from the earth's mantle. When these rocks are weathered out, the durable, heavy platinum comes to rest at the same locations as the gold.
Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River."

Answer 2

Platinum is a highly inert(unreactive) metal. So much so that is doesn't tend to form ores like most other metals and can be found as native(pure) platinum.

This native platinum can be found in river beds and this is where the earliest humans would have found platinum.

Answer 3

Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." The first European reference to platinum appears in 1557 in the writings of the Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger as a description of an unknown noble metal found between Darién and Mexico, "which no fire nor any Spanish artifice has yet been able to liquefy."

Answer 4

Don Antonio de Ulloa traveled to New Spain in 1735 to mine for gold. On this trip he noticed some black sand. This heavy sand was platinum, he gave this sand the name Plantina del Pinto meaning "little silver of the river Pinto" this is where the word platinum comes from

Answer 5

The name, Platiinum, is derived from the Spanish phrase platina del Pinto, which literally translates as "little silver of the Pinto River."

Answer 6

It isn't named for a person. It's derived from the Spanish phase platina del Pinto, translated, "little silver in the Pinto River."

Answer 7

by a scientist who was looking at it and it looked like little silver so platina in espenol means little silver so PLATINUM

Answer 8

Platinum was named by Spanish conquistadors in the 18th century. They considered it a nuisance in their search for gold and called it "platina," which means "little silver" in Spanish.