Osmium

Heraeus offers osmium compounds as solids and solutions in small quantities for research projects as well as in large quantities for industrial applications. Due to our decades of experience in the extraction and processing of osmium, we can guarantee a high and consistent quality of our products.

Heraeus has also strong experience in the global shipping of osmium compounds. Especially our osmium tetroxide ampoules are being used for microscopy worldwide. Below you find all of our osmium compounds. Almost all of them can be bought online through our product shop.

The data of the worldwide osmium production varies between 150 kilograms and one ton. Main deposits of osmium are located in Russia, Canada and South Africa. In most cases, osmium is extracted either during the mining of platinum ores or as a by-product of nickel processing. Although osmium can naturally occur in solid (pure) form, for industrial purposes osmium has to be extracted from ore concentrates through very complex processes.

Ore concentrates from precious metal mines contain, in addition to gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, a small amount of the precious metal osmium. To separate osmium from the other precious metals, Heraeus uses various pyrometallurgical and wet chemical processes. In the first step, osmium can be separated from the other precious metals together with ruthenium using an oxidizing molten salt with a downstream water extraction. After various precipitation and dissolution processes, the osmium is finally separated from the ruthenium as volatile osmium tetroxide by distillation with hydrogen peroxide and can then be precipitated in high purity as ammonium or potassium salt. The final step is a hydrogen reduction to metallic osmium. This now serves as a starting point for the production of new osmium alloys and compounds.

In general, the chemical industry uses various osmium compounds as catalysts for dihydroxylation processes, especially
osmium tetroxide, potassium osmate (VI) dihydrate and ammonium hexachloroosmate (IV). The toxic osmium tetroxide is used as a contrast medium in electron microscopy. Platinum-osmium or osmium-iridium alloys are used in medical implants such as artificial heart valves or pacemakers. A relatively new medical application is the use of osmium-based compounds for anticancer agents. In general, osmium is not preferred over other metals in industrial applications because of its price, unless durability and hardness are critical. Thus, osmium or osmium alloys are often used in abrasive and abrasive applications such as writing tips in pens, phonographic scanning needles, pins and shafts in instrument manufacturing. Moreover, osmium is also becoming increasingly popular in the jewelry industry.

In addition to our osmium compounds, Heraeus offers a large number of other catalytic compounds of the platinum group, including homogeneous catalysts, heterogeneous catalysts, emission catalysts and our catalyst networks. We would be pleased to advise you individually in order to filter out the most suitable product for your application. Just contact us if you need further information or take a closer look at our products on our website.