The scarce metal platinum — a valuable catalyst — is hard to recycle if it is mixed with other noble metals such as gold, because the strong acids used to dissolve these metals do so indiscriminately. Wei Lin, Ching-Ping Wong and their colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have come up with a solvent that can efficiently dissolve gold, palladium and silver at room temperature, but leaves platinum untouched.

Varying the composition of the solvent — a mixture of thionyl chloride and organic reagents — allows selective dissolution of metals. The system should help to recover platinum more efficiently from metal waste streams.

Angew. Chem. Int. Edn doi:10.1002/anie.201001244 (2010)