List of Platinum Group Metals or PGMs

The platinum group metals or PGMs are a set of six transition metals that share similar properties. They may be considered a subset of the precious metals. The platinum group metals are clustered together on the periodic table, plus these metals tend to be found together in minerals. The list of PGMs is: Iridium  (Ir)Osmium  (Os)Palladium  (Pd)Platinum  (Pt)Rhodium  (Rh)Ruthenium  (Ru) Alternate Names: The platinum group metals are also known as: PGMs, platinum group, platinum metals, platinoids, platinum group elements or PGEs, platinides, platidises, platinum family Key Takeaways: Platinum Group Metals The platinum group metals or PGMs are a set of six precious metals that are clustered together on the periodic table around the element platinum.The elements share certain desirable properties with platinum. All are noble metals and transition metals in the d-block of the periodic table.The platinum group metals are widely used as catalysts, corrosion-resistant materials, and fine jewelry. Properties of the Platinum Group Metals The six PGMs share similar properties, including: Extremely high density (densest element is a PGM)Highly resistant to wear or tarnishResist corrosion or chemical attackCatalytic propertiesStable electrical propertiesStable at high temperatures Uses of PGMs Several of the platinum group metals are used in jewelry. In particular, platinum, rhodium, and iridium are popular. Because of the price of these metals, they are often used as coatings over softer, more reactive metals, such as silver.PGMs are important catalysts. Platinum catalysts are important in the petrochemical industry. Platinum or platinum-rhodium alloy are used to catalyze partial oxidation of ammonia to produce nitric oxide, an important raw material in chemical production. PGMS are also used as catalysts for organic chemical reactions. The automotive industry uses platinum, palladium, and rhodium in catalytic converters to treat exhaust emissions.Platinum group metals are used as alloying additives.PGMs may be used to make crucibles used to grow single crystals, particularly of oxides.Platinum group metal alloys are used to make electrical contacts, electrodes, thermocouples, and circuits.Iridium and platinum are used in medical implants and pacemakers. Sources of Platinum Group Metals Platinum gets its name from platina, meaning little silver, because the Spaniards considered it an unwanted impurity in silver mining operations in Colombia. For the most part, PGMs are found together in ores. Ultramafic and mafic igneous rocks contain high levels of platinum group metals, the granites contain a low percentage of the metals. The richest deposits include mafic layered intrusions, such as Bushveld Complex. Platinum metals are found in the Ural Mountains, North and South America, Ontario, and other places. Platinum metals are also produced as a by-product of nickel mining and processing. Additionally, the light platinum group metals (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium) form as fission products in nuclear reactors. Extraction Platinum metal extraction processes are typically trade secrets. First, the sample is dissolved in acid. Aqua regia is most often used for this purpose. This produces a solution of metal complexes. Basically, isolation uses the different solubilities and reactivities of the different elements in various solvents. While recovering noble metals from reactors is expensive, the escalating price of the metals has made spent nuclear fuel a viable source of the elements. History Platinum and its alloys occur in native form and were known by pre-Columbian Americans. Despite its early use, platinum does not appear in literature until the 16th century. In 1557, Italian Julius Caesar Scalinger wrote of a mysterious metal found in Central America that was unknown to Europeans. Fun Fact Iron, nickel, and cobalt are three transition metals located above the platinum group metals on the periodic table. They are the only transition metals that are ferromagnetic! Sources Kolarik, Zdenek; Renard, Edouard V. (2005). Potential Applications of Fission Platinoids in Industry. Platinum Metals Review. 49 (2): 79. doi:10.1595/147106705X35263Renner, H.; Schlamp, G.; Kleinwà ¤chter, I.; Drost, E.; Là ¼schow, H. M.; Tews, P.; Panster, P.; Diehl, M.; et al. (2002). Platinum group metals and compounds. Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Wiley. doi:10.1002/14356007.a21_075Weeks, M. E. (1968). Discovery of the Elements (7 ed.). Journal of Chemical Education. pp. 385–407. ISBN 0-8486-8579-2.Woods, Ian (2004). The Elements: Platinum. Benchmark Books. ISBN 978-0-7614-1550-3.Xiao, Z.; Laplante, A. R. (2004). Characterizing and recovering the platinum group minerals—a review. Minerals Engineering. 17 (9–10): 961–979. doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2004.04.001

Walter Lippmanns Views on Presidential Ability to Make...

Walter Lippmanns Views on Presidential Ability to Make U.S. Foreign Policy In his book entitled Public Opinion Walter Lippmann presents some very profound arguments on how public opinion is formed and how mach value it has. He describes in great detail the decision making process and how our own stereotypes affect our perception of events. Lippmann expresses his disillusionment with mass democracy, his concerns about propaganda and how the press could not be trusted to provide unbiased information. Contrary to what one would expect form someone holding such views Lippmann also questions the trustworthiness of the chief executive to make good foreign policy, even when he has all of the inside information and knows the true nature†¦show more content†¦However there are plenty of examples which show that Lippmann has hit on a key point here. One such example is the bombing of Nagasaki (second atomic bomb) and President Harry Truman. It has long been debated whether the second atomic bomb was really necessary to bring World War II to an end. Th ere has been much evidence that the Japanese had indicated a desire to surrender prior to the bombing but with the only condition that they be allowed to keep their emperor. An important clue was the diary of President Truman. The following is an excerpt from his diary concerning the use of the atomic bomb: Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. When the official order for using the bombs was given there was no mention of sparing cities or civilian targets. The cities were the targets themselves. The point is that Trumans own personal stereotypes of the Japanese are evident in this entry. The entry can be interpreted as Truman viewing the Japanese as being less than human. When one views another group as being less than human it becomes much less difficult to give an order which will end the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. So it is quite possible that his own personal stereotypes played a role along with the argument that the bombs would expedite the end of the war and

Lego Free Essays

Lego Lego is a line of plastic toys that can be constructed into specific sets, characters from movies or books, and anything you want it to be. The Lego Group started out in 1932 and today it’s one of the world’s leading toy companies, In 2016 alone, Lego made 12.4 billion dollars from only lego sets. We will write a custom essay sample on Lego or any similar topic only for you Order Now Today they also have amusement parks with lego rides, stores, and statues made out of legos, such as a pirate ship, Hulkbuster, and Hulk. The man who started the lego group was known as Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who grew up with five brothers and five sisters. By the age of seven he was working for a local smallholder, then a few months later he began to work at a nearby farm. In the year 1903 he was apprenticed as a carpenter with his brother, and worked hard until 1911 when he completed his training. Ole Kirk Kristiansen buys Billund Maskinsnedkeri for DKK 10,000 when the area is just a bunch of small farms and store fronts. This factory manufactures doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, cupboards, coffins, chests of drawers, and tools for digging peat. They also contributed for larger projects, such as fixing farm machinery or constructing buildings, such as the local church. With this skill set and the help of a local architect, he built a new house for him, his wife, and his kids all while paying little to nothing.During the great economic crisis, Ole Kirk Kristiansen was still trying to sell carpentry, but almost nobody could afford his works, forcing him out of work. After that, his wife left him with 4 kids and no money to take care of them. To make easy money during the crisis, Ole Kirk Kristiansen began to make toys, first wooden cars, then airplanes and yoyos. After that he began to make ironing boards, ladders, and christmas tree stands. This did get him through the crisis, but he doesn’t make any real profit and his family doesn’t think his store is very important. Kristiansen asked his brothers and sisters to be guarantors for a loan that would secure his company’s future, they asked him,† Can’t you find something better to do?†Ole Kirk Kristiansen ended up having kids during the 1920s, but the kid who had the most effect on the family company was the third son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. He was helping his dad in the shop when he was only four years old. He always said his first memory in there was when they turned on the glue heater, and some wood shavings caught fire and burned the whole place down. The reason Ole Kirk Kristiansen and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen have different beginnings to their names is because people pronounced the name with the â€Å"Ch† and when casually spelling out the name they would use the â€Å"Ch† as well. Ole Kirk Kristiansen never minded the confusion but Godtfred was bothered by it so he had it legally changed to Christiansen.After World War II, Ole Kirk Kristiansen noticed that a new material for making toys was becoming more and more popular; plastic. Plastic was less more malleable than wood and could be acquired easier. Ole Kirk Kristiansen and other Danish toy manufacturers attended a demonstration of an injection-moulding machine in June of 1946, and the machine impressed Kristiansen so he made an order for an injection-moulding machine for his own shop. Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s sons, who were all involved in the family company at the time, collectively disagreed with their fathers decision to invest money into this new technology. They thought while plastic could be used to make prettier toys, wood was the better material because it was the stronger of the two. Their father argued that if they got it right; they could produce toys for the whole world.In 1949, the first of the plastic lego bricks had begun production. They were known as Automatic Binding Bricks, but in 1951, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen changed the name to LEGO Mursten, or LEGO Bricks to further spread popularity of LEGO.By 1953 the LEGO company was ready to go international, starting with the Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Iceland. After that they turned to Europe; starting with Germany. At the time, Germany was the world’s epicenter of toy production. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen during this time often said, â€Å"If we can conquer Germany, we can conquer the world!† In the end they did get to the whole world, but it did take them a while. In 1961, LEGO finally licensed an American company which would begin to sell around the country and in Canada. Once LEGO began to make a name for itself across the entire world, other people and companies started competition with LEGO, giving them a hard time. In 1960. Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen laid down the company rule: following the crucial decision to concentrate all efforts into the LEGO system, saying â€Å"No one must be able to do this better than us.† He also outlines all of their development so far, like this,†We know our idea is a good one. We want only the best †¦ we must make better bricks from even better material on even better machinery. We must get the best people that money can buy for our company.† In 1962, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen’s cousin, Dagny Holm, joined the company and showed a very immense potential for model building with a skilled eye that seemed like it could make anything out of those bricks. She made buildings, castles, animals, people, and furniture. Her skill attracted the public eye and inspired anybody who worked with the LEGO product, making the company’s golden age. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen came up with the idea to use his cousin’s skill to make a display of LEGO models and contacted a few friends to startup the first LEGOLand. Thousands of pounds of earth and vegetation were removed to make ever-changing landscapes in the Miniland. The final product included a train, puppet theater, Native American camp, driving school, neighborhood, windmill, and church, all created by Dagny Holm and her creative team. Within the year of the first LEGOland’s opening, around 625,000 people visit it to see the models or play with the thousands of LEGO bricks around the property.The LEGO company continued to expand and grow until today, where it is still achieving new things and breaking records every day. Almost everybody grew up playing with legos, either building the sets that they sell, playing with friends or making their own creations just for fun. You can ask almost anyone and they can tell you a few memories they have of playing with legos, whether it’s going to Legoland to stepping on them getting out of bed. Today LEGO makes things called Lego Sets. They are meant to be little figurines or models from real life, movies, books, TV shows, and video games. Some examples of these Lego Sets are: hospitals, The Millenium Falcon, Helms Deep, The Death Star, and Space Ships. These sets are sold in boxes, which contain bags of pieces, big and small. Some of the are just meant to be walls, but some of the pieces are doors, stairs, cups, and windows. The sets always have a different number of pieces, depending on the size of the set. Sometimes the piece count is 50, other times it is over 1000. The box also contains a book of instructions, telling the builder where to put the pieces and when to move to other parts. People use these sets for many things. Some people put them up for observation in their rooms, other people play with them until they break, and a very special few people wait several years until that specific set isn’t sold anymore and they sell it for a big price. How to cite Lego, Papers

Literacy in Pakistan for Theory and Practice- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theLiteracy in Pakistan for Theory and Practice. Answer: Introduction Literacy is the ability to understand text used in written media such as newspapers and capacity to perform simple arithmetic calculation such as subtraction, addition, and counting. Education is the lifeline of developing countries, and high literacy levels often mean high development in any country. The job market is changing, and it demands skills which can only be attained by learning. To develop their nations, countries around the world are striving to have a literate population so as to catch up with developed nations. Pakistan is a relatively new country having been formed in 1947. Four years after its formation, Pakistan had a literacy level of around 20 percent. While this number was expected to drop as the country became stable, the illiteracy level has risen to new heights, and it is still growing (UNESCO Islamabad, 2012). For a country which was formed on the promise of new opportunities, the literacy level is worrying. Many aspects have been blamed for the low literacy l evels: from poor policy to lack of resource allocation to the education sector to population burst, the message is clear that there is a need for change. Pakistan has a literacy rate of 56 per cent which makes it one of the lowest in the world. Half of the population is illiterate, and the dropout rate is over 30 percent(Das, Pandey, Zajonc, 2006). Literacy levels are worrying in all the sexes and people of all ages. A literate population leads to social, political, cultural and personal development in a country. For Pakistan to realize any meaningful development, it must ensure that emphasizes on educating its population. The country should realize the value of education in development. Literacy is a boost to the development of a country. Firstly, being illiterate does not affect the individual alone, it affects the society as a whole. Institutions which are crucial for the country such as the political institution are affected in a society where most of the population are illiterate. Illiteracy causes dependence and deprives the citizens of the country of attaining any meaningful development. In a country where more than half of the population have never attended school, Pakistans development has been substantially impaired (Iqbal, Haque, Niazi, 2002). This shocking literacy rate has taken a terrible toll on the political, social, and economic sectors in the country. The wealth of a country is the sum of its citizens wealth. Illiterate citizens do not have the necessary skills to fend for themselves. This inability to provide for themselves impairs the developments of a country. Also, high illiteracy in adults means that they cannot afford to educate their children hence it leads to a cycle of illiteracy in a countr y. Further, low literacy levels mean that a country lags behind in development in comparison with its neighbors (UNESCO Islamabad, 2012). However, the worst result of low literacy levels to development is due to its effect on the democracy of a country. Illiterate citizens are not able to make political decisions, and hence they are not well represented. Pakistan often faces political instability due to the high illiteracy among the voters who are not able to make informed decisions. Development is the collective effort of all citizens and improving literacy levels will ensure that the country attains many forms of development. Combination of factors often causes low literacy levels. In Pakistan, their literacy level which is below 60 percent is caused by financial constraints and poor policies. Poor resource allocation often hampers the development of education. Allocation to the education sector in Pakistan is often less than three percent of the gross domestic product (Choudhry, 2005). Furthermore, a lack of policy and an absence of structure result in low literacy levels. The policies which are often set are not implemented. This lack of commitment from the government and the stakeholders have greatly contributed to the low literacy levels. These cause and effect of aspects of poverty, high population, and poor policies lead to a grim future in a country. Leaders should be committed and take an interest in improving the literacy levels (Street, 2003). The leaders should push for agendas which will lead to social change by improving the literacy levels. Additionally, the policy gaps should be reduced. Th e stakeholders involved in improving the literacy levels to should be willing and open to ideas which will transform the education sector. There should be organizational structures which are aimed at improving literacy, and such organizations should be well funded. Not spending on education of its citizens has grave implications on the future of Pakistan (Das et al., 2006). Adults should be educated so that they can be empowered to educate their children hence stopping the cycle of illiteracy. Further, rural areas should be targeted in literacy programs as most of the illiterate are accumulated in rural places. Pakistan should address the factors which cause high illiteracy so that it can achieve developmental goals. Literacy levels in Pakistan are low, and the country should seek to improve so as to achieve development. Pakistan should ensure that children are schooled when they are young. Those who have attained the age of going to school should be given full access to formal education which will increase literacy. Education is a basic human right and Pakistan should be committed to fulfill this international pledge. There should be active approaches and establishment of literacy programs all over the country. The result of having low literacy levels in a country are many, and they jeopardize a countrys effort of achieving development, the sooner a country improves its literacy level, the sooner it achieves development. Adult literacy programs should be started and stakeholders should be committed to tackle challenges to improving the literacy levels. The improvement of literacy levels in citizens through formal education is a constant factor for the betterment of a country. Illiteracy blocks a ny meaningful development in a country and hampers with the progress of a society. Low literacy levels also impede the progress of a countrys institutions. References Choudhry, M. A. (2005). Pakistan?: where and who are the world s illiterates Literacy for Life, 114. Das, J., Pandey, P., Zajonc, T. (2006). Learning levels and gaps in Pakistan. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, No. 4067, 147. https://doi.org/February 23, 2015 Iqbal, Z., Haque, A. R., Niazi, H. K. (2002). Literacy Trends in Pakistan. Islamabad. Street, B. (2003). Whats new in New Literacy Studies?: Critical approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 5(2), 7791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.02.026 UNESCO Islamabad. (2012). Why Paksitan Needs a Literacy Movement? Islamabad.