Platinum

Platinum is a heavy, silvery-white precious metal that does not tarnish or rust. People in pre-Columbian South America worked it, and Spanish colonists called it platina, little silver. Antonio de Ulloa described it for European scientists in 1748. Today most comes from South Africa, with Russia second.

Platinum's surface is a superb catalyst, speeding up reactions without being used up. Car catalytic converters use it, along with palladium and rhodium, to clean exhaust gases. Because it withstands molten glass, platinum-lined channels and nozzles are used to make display glass and to draw glass fiber. It also appears in jewelry, lab electrodes, hard drives and cisplatin, a widely used cancer drug.