Editing Platinum (section)

===Means of malleability===
[[Karl von Sickingen]] researched platinum extensively in 1772. He succeeded in making [[malleable]] platinum by [[alloy]]ing it with gold, dissolving the alloy in hot ''[[aqua regia]]'', precipitating the platinum with [[ammonium chloride]], igniting the ammonium chloroplatinate, and hammering the resulting finely divided platinum to make it cohere. [[Franz Karl Achard]] made the first platinum crucible in 1784. He worked with the platinum by fusing it with arsenic, then later [[volatilisation|volatilizing]] the arsenic.<ref name="weeks" />

Because the other platinum-family members were not discovered yet (platinum was the first), Scheffer and Sickingen made the false assumption that due to its hardness—which is slightly more than for pure [[iron]]—platinum would be a relatively non-pliable material, even brittle at times, when in fact its ductility exceeds that of gold and its malleability similar to gold's. Their assumptions could not be avoided because the platinum they experimented with was highly contaminated with minute amounts of platinum-family elements such as [[osmium]] and [[iridium]], amongst others, which embrittled the platinum alloy. Alloying this impure platinum residue called "plyoxen"{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}} with gold as the only solution at the time to obtain a pliable compound. Presently, very pure platinum is readily available, and extremely long wires can easily be drawn from pure platinum due to its crystalline structure, which is similar to that of many soft metals.<ref>[http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/platinum.htm Platinum] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111222044410/http://mysite.du.edu/%7Ejcalvert/phys/platinum.htm |date=22 December 2011 }}. mysite.du.edu</ref>