Palladium

On Earth, it is rare. It is a lustrous silvery-white metal discovered on Earth in the year 1803 A.D by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas.

The Hawjabran discovered it 2500 years ago and called is Hawfusar, the Andalites identified this metal over 8000 years ago.

Palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs). These have similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of them. The unique properties of palladium and other platinum group metals account for their widespread use.

Uses
The second-biggest application of palladium in electronics is in the manufacture of multilayer ceramic capacitors, in which palladium (and palladium-silver alloys) are used as electrodes. Palladium (sometimes alloyed with nickel) is used in connector platings in consumer electronics.

Hydrogen easily diffuses through heated palladium, thus, it provides a means of purifying the gas. Membrane reactors with Pd membranes are therefore used for the production of high purity hydrogen. Palladium is a part of the palladium-hydrogen electrode in electrochemical studies. Palladium(II) chloride can oxidize large amounts of carbon monoxide gas, and is used in carbon monoxide detectors.

Palladium readily absorbs hydrogen at room temperatures forming palladium hydride PdHx with x below 1. While this property is common to many transition metals, palladium is unique by the high absorption capacity and by that it does not lose its ductility until high x values. This property has been investigated for designing an efficient, yet inexpensive hydrogen storage material (palladium itself is prohibitively expensive for this purpose).