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Ruthenium is the first of the noble metals, the group whose star members are gold and platinum. These metals are expensive, shiny, and often used in jewelry and lab ware. Ruthenium plated jewelry is fairly common, though of course not nearly as common as gold plated. Ruthenium items have a darker, pewter color compared to platings such as silver or rhodium.
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Very fine powder (technically "sponge").
This is one of the finest powders I've seen: Very, very powdery. It's also a very unusual color, somehow. Lighter than most powders, in a chocolaty sort of way. Think coffee with a whole lot of milk in it, but less brown and more gray. And of course it's no doubt very pure.
Source: David Franco
Contributor: Ed Pegg Jr
Acquired: 16 August, 2002
Price: $22
Size: 0.5"
Purity: 99.99%
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Sample from the Everest Element Set.
Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (excepted gasses) weight about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order.
Source: Rob Accurso
Contributor: Rob Accurso
Acquired: 7 February, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: >99%
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Necklace with ruthenium beads.
According to the eBay seller, the pewter-colored beads in this quite pretty necklace are made of solid ruthenium (not plated). Unfortunately, this is not the case. Analysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois (partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439) indicates that they are copper-based with a thin plating of gold and ruthenium.
So, on the plus side, they do contain ruthenium and are thus a legitimate sample of this element. But solid ruthenium would have been a lot cooler. From this experience I learned that ruthenium is a commonly used plating for costume jewelry, which means I can add it to the list of elements you can buy at Walmart.
Source: eBay seller shining-jewel
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 14 February, 2003
Price: $45/necklace
Size: 0.15"
Purity: 99%
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