Rhodium is an indispensable material. However, the noblest of all metals is difficult to obtain.
What makes the market so limited and highly volatile?
Like platinum and palladium, rhodium is one of the platinum metals. The metal is silvery-white, very shiny and very hard.
The most outstanding features are
- a particularly high electrical and thermal conductivity
- a high durability
- a particularly high melting point
For comparison: rhodium metal melts at more than 1,900 degrees, while the platinum, which is very heat-resistant, melts at 1,772 degrees. Therefore, people mainly use it as a strength-increasing catalyst in platinum and palladium alloys. You can use them in spark plugs, heating coils and above all in car catalysts, among other things. In the US, automotive catalytic converters account for almost 85 percent of all rhodium consumption.
