Rhodium, together with platinum, palladium,
iridium, ruthenium, and osmium, is one of the platinum-
group metals in Group VIII of the Periodic Table. Rhodium
metal is a white, hard, ductile, malleable solid with a
bluish-gray luster.
Rhodium has few applications by
itself, as in rhodium plating of white gold jewelry or plat-
ing of electrical parts, such as commutator slip rings, but,
mainly, rhodium is used as a component of platinum alloys.
Rhodium-containing catalysts have been proposed for use
in automotive catalytic converters for exhaust gas cleanup.
Flammable powder, Hazard Class: 4.1; Labels:
4.1-Flammable solid.
Flammable as a dust, fume, or powder
may form explosive mixture with air. Incompatible with
strong oxidizers (chlorates, nitrates, peroxides, permanga-
nates, perchlorates, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, etc.); con-
tact may cause fires or explosions. Keep away from
alkaline materials, strong bases, strong acids, oxoacids,
epoxides, bromine pentafluoride, and bromine trifluoride;
chlorine trifluoride; oxygen difluoride.
Recovery in view of the high
economic value. Recovery techniques for recycling of
rhodium in plating wastes and spent catalysts have been
described in the literature.
