The determination of the platinum group metals

This chapter discusses the determination of the platinum group metals, iridium, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhodium and ruthenium. The determination of the metals is specialised and complex, because of the close similarity of their chemistry and the typical low levels at which they occur. The development of instrumental methods of analysis, which do not require separation of the platinum metals from each other, has alleviated the former problem. The latter difficulty has been overcome substantially by improvements in collection and concentration techniques. The instrumental analysis methods include atomic absorption spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, emission spectrometry and spectrography, spectrophotometry, gravimetric analysis, and the use of standard stock solutions of the platinum group metals and gold