 As my 46th birthday approached last year, my wife asked if there were anything I would particularly like. Looking for inspiration, I wondered if there would be any percentage in suggesting something along the lines of wedding anniversaries—a different substance for every year, but this time based on atomic numbers. You could receive cubic zirconia instead of rubies at 40 or neodymium magnets (found in the loudspeakers in mobile phones) instead of diamonds at 60. You would have to allow compounds of the respective elements, let’s say 20 mol%, because not that many are actually used in their native form. And there could be some particularly awkward years—it would be a brave parent who gave a nine-year-old elemental fluorine.
For some years, it would work rather well. Water is innocuous enough for a one-year-old, a set of graphite pencils would be very suitable at age six, and bronze (tin) would be just about acceptable at 50. Gold would make an excellent elemental gift for octogenarians, but sadly it misses out by a year; the poor old souls would have to make do with mercury thermometers.
Unfortunately, the concept is not always so successful. A helium balloon would please a two-year-old, but the other noble gas years would lack interest. I don’t suppose an 18-year-old would thank you for an argon lamp. Scandium has a rarity value suitable for 21, but you don’t see many artifacts made from it. Brass (zinc), on the other hand, is somewhat mundane for 30. It’s difficult to imagine how you could give arsenic to someone approaching a third of a century without also giving the wrong message. And the transuranic years, for those who live that long, would be hazardous and not that easy to arrange.
My next birthday will be a good one for me (silver), but I thought I would leave it until then to suggest the idea to the boss, because element number 46 is palladium, and I didn’t particularly want a new catalytic converter. I couldn’t think of any other uses, so for a while I contemplated linking one of my element-based Last Word reminiscences to the subject, its influence on my career, and so forth—not in principle a bad idea. I could spin this out at an essay a year for the rest of my life, except for gold and gadolinium, which I covered a few months ago. The lanthanide years would be tedious, but I told myself to view it as a challenge. However, I struggled immediately, having no recollection of ever having handled palladium. It was conceivable, but not certain, that I had catalyzed a reaction with it as an undergraduate, but since then our paths haven’t crossed.
A little research showed that palladium has more uses than I imagined. However, my delving didn’t help with my birthday. Few applications carry enough of the element to count, and those that do wouldn’t strike most people as celebratory presents. It soaks up a lot of hydrogen, which could be useful if hydrogen fuel cells are ever used to power automobiles, but that’s for the future, and it may never happen (is there enough palladium in the world?). Besides the obvious uses in catalysis, palladium also finds its way into jewelry (there’s a little in white gold), electronics, and dentistry. Nevertheless, I’m not going to ask for a spot of bridgework.
Palladium is named after the asteroid Pallas, both discovered in 1803. Given that the asteroid that whacked into the Yucatan and knocked off the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period was highly enriched in iridium, compared with the Earth’s crust, it would be interesting to see if Pallas is actually a valuable source of its namesake Group VIII metal; I imagine it probably is. The bicentennial is also coming up. Perhaps we should declare 2003 to be the Year of the Heterogeneous Catalyst.
But back to birthdays. My daughters will be 8, 11, and 13 next year, so an aluminum can of mineral (sodium) water (oxygen this time) for each of them would do nicely and cut down on the costs. This is just as well, since my wife, who also has a chemistry degree, will insist on something made of technetium. I’m not sure where I’m going to find some, but she won’t let me off—I’ve just given her age away.
David Birkett is a senior scientist in the Irish chemical industry.
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