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60 free Platinum trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This platinum trivia quiz covers element 78 from every angle: the chemistry (why it dissolves only in aqua regia, its six natural isotopes, why bulk platinum never oxidizes), the history (pre-Columbian goldsmiths in Ecuador, Spanish miners who threw it away as an impurity, Antonio de Ulloa's 1748 report, William Brownrigg, Chabaneau and Spain's 'platinum age', Wollaston's discovery of palladium and rhodium in platinum ore), and the geology, from the Merensky Reef in South Africa's Bushveld Complex to Norilsk and the Sudbury Basin. There are also questions on how platinum is used: catalytic converters and Gerhard Ertl's Nobel Prize, the platinum-iridium metre and kilogram standards, resistance thermometers, cisplatin and cancer chemotherapy, platinum prints in photography, the American Platinum Eagle and Russia's platinum rubles, and platinum as a byword for prestige, from RIAA platinum records and platinum credit cards to Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. Some questions are easy for anyone who paid attention in chemistry; others will test collectors, chemists and metallurgists. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on platinum, the platinum group and related topics, and each explanation adds one further detail. If you like this, try our periodic table and gold quizzes too.
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Q 01What is platinum's atomic number?
78
Its symbol is Pt; gold is 79 and palladium, its lighter sibling, is 46.
Q 02Platinum's name comes from the Spanish 'platina', a diminutive meaning what?
Little silver
The Spanish at first regarded it as an annoying impurity in gold and often threw it away.
Q 03Platinum sits in which numbered column of the periodic table?
10
It is also one of the six platinum-group metals along with ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium and iridium.
Q 04How many naturally occurring isotopes does platinum have?
Six
Platinum-195, about 34 percent of the total, is the only stable one with a non-zero spin, making it useful in NMR.
Q 05Platinum is the most ductile of all pure metals, beating which three?
Gold, silver and copper
Its resistance to wear and tarnish is why it suits fine jewelry.
Q 06Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid alone but dissolves in what?
Hot aqua regia
The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids produces chloroplatinic acid, H2PtCl6.
Q 07Which halogen reacts vigorously with platinum at 500 °C to form platinum tetrafluoride?
Fluorine
Otherwise unreactive, platinum is also attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine and sulfur.
Q 08What are platinum's two most common oxidation states?
+2 and +4
Platinum(II) compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries.
Q 09Gerhard Ertl won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for explaining which reaction on platinum?
Catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide
That is the chemistry inside a catalytic converter.
Q 10Roughly what is platinum's average abundance in Earth's crust?
About 5 micrograms per kilogram
Only a few hundred tonnes are produced each year, mostly as a by-product of nickel and copper mining.
Q 11Which pre-Columbian culture of the Ecuador-Colombia coast made gold-platinum alloy artifacts?
La Tolita
They sintered gold and platinum powders together to make an alloy soft enough to shape.
Q 12The first European reference to platinum, in 1557, came from which Italian humanist?
Julius Caesar Scaliger
He described an unknown noble metal 'which no fire nor any Spanish artifice has yet been able to liquefy'.
Q 13Which Spanish naval officer's 1748 report on a Colombian 'new metal' brought platinum to science?
Antonio de Ulloa
He later governed Spanish Louisiana and superintended the mercury mines of Huancavelica.
Q 21Roughly what share of the world's known platinum lies in the Merensky Reef?
75%
The Bushveld Complex is the largest layered igneous intrusion in Earth's crust.
Q 22In 2010 South Africa produced almost what share of the world's platinum?
77%
Russia was second with 13 percent, mostly from the copper-nickel deposits near Norilsk.
Q 23Sperrylite, platinum arsenide, is a major source of platinum in which Canadian nickel deposit?
Sudbury Basin
The basin is an ancient impact site; platinum is present at only 0.5 ppm but the ore volume makes it worthwhile.
Which two other large platinum deposits, along with the Bushveld, dominate world supply?
Q 14British metallurgist Charles Wood found Colombian platinum samples in 1741 where?
Jamaica
He sent them to William Brownrigg, who presented the metal to the Royal Society in 1750.
Q 15Henrik Scheffer's 1752 description of platinum called it by what name?
White gold
He fused platinum ore with the aid of arsenic and noted its resistance to corrosion.
Q 16Which French chemist, backed by Charles III of Spain, produced 23 kg of pure malleable platinum in 1786?
Pierre-François Chabaneau
Unknown to him, his ore still held other platinum-group metals, which made results inconsistent.
Q 17Which English chemist discovered palladium and rhodium while purifying platinum ore?
William Hyde Wollaston
He also patented the camera lucida.
Q 18Which French king called platinum 'the only metal fit for a king'?
Louis XV
Its scarcity and intrinsic value made it a royal favourite in the 18th century.
Q 19Who made the first platinum crucible in 1784?
Franz Karl Achard
He fused the platinum with arsenic and then volatilized the arsenic away.
Q 20Hans Merensky's 1924 platinum discovery lay in which South African geological formation?
Bushveld Igneous Complex
The Merensky Reef contains around 75 percent of the world's known platinum.
Norilsk in Russia and the Sudbury Basin in Canada
Alluvial platinum is also still mined in the Ural Mountains and Colombia's Chocó.
Q 25A mine at Platinum, Alaska produced about 17,000 kg of the metal between 1927 and what year?
1975
The mine finally ceased operations in 1990.
Q 26Platinum-group metals settle to the bottom of copper electrorefining cells as what?
Anode mud
That residue, also holding gold, silver, selenium and tellurium, is the starting point for extraction.
Q 27Why can nickel and iron impurities be removed from raw platinum with an electromagnet?
It is paramagnetic while they are ferromagnetic
Lighter impurities are floated off in liquid, and acid-soluble ones are dissolved away.
Q 28What was the largest use of platinum in 2014, taking 45 percent of the 218 tonnes sold?
Vehicle emissions control devices
Jewelry was second at 34 percent.
Q 29Most US gasoline cars have carried catalytic converters since which model year?
1975
Three-way converters that also cut nitrogen oxides were first sold by Volvo on 1977 California-spec cars.
Q 30PtO2, used to hydrogenate vegetable oils, is known by what name?
Adams' catalyst
Platinum has been used as a catalyst since the early 19th century, when platinum powder was used to ignite hydrogen.