Rhodium is a hard, silvery, durable metal that has a high reflectance. Rhodium metal does not normally form an oxide, even when heated. These characteristics, combined with a spot price lower than platinum, are beneficial for use in jewelry, especially as settings for precious gems.
The industrial extraction of rhodium is complex, as the metal occurs in ores mixed with other metals such as palladium, silver, platinum and gold. Rhodium is found in platinum ores and extracted as a white inert metal which is very difficult to fuse.
Rhodium is a fission product of uranium-235; therefore, each kilogram of fission products contains significant amounts of the lighter platinum group metals including rhodium. Used nuclear fuel might be a possible source for rhodium. However, the extraction is complex and expensive, and the also present radioactive isotopes of rhodium would require a storage for several half-lives of the longest-lived decaying isotope (i.e. about 10 years) to reduce the radioactivity. This makes this source of rhodium unattractive and no large-scale extraction has been attempted.
This cache is a micro on a sign and can be used for Periodic Table of Elements Challenge, GC2P5TJ.
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