Chemical Manufacturing
The industry producing bulk and specialty industrial chemicals; rhodium-platinum gauze catalysts are the standard method for oxidizing ammonia into nitric oxide, the key step in manufacturing nitric acid.
Covered in 3 MetalsCost.com News Intelligence articles, most recently on October 11, 2026.
Overview
Chemical manufacturing turns basic feedstocks — crude-oil derivatives, natural gas, air, minerals — into the bulk and specialty chemicals other industries build on: plastics, solvents, fertilizers, industrial gases and acids. Nitric acid is a good example: nearly all of it, worldwide, still goes through the century-old Ostwald process, in which ammonia gas is burned over a hot metal catalyst to form nitric oxide, then oxidized and absorbed into water.
Metals It Depends On
Platinum and rhodium make the Ostwald process work at industrial scale. The reaction runs across gauze woven from fine platinum-rhodium alloy wire (commonly 90-95% platinum, 5-10% rhodium) held at roughly 900°C, with gas passing through in about a millisecond. Rhodium's addition improved mechanical strength and reduced volatilization losses over pure platinum, and the same gauze technology remains the standard route to nitric acid, the precursor for ammonium nitrate fertilizer and industrial explosives.
Sources
- Platinum-rhodium gauze catalyst composition and operating conditions — Reconstruction of platinum-rhodium catalysts during oxidation of ammonia (2005)
Coverage
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The plant would make titanium dioxide pigment locally.
Rock Tech Cuts the Cost Estimate for Its Ontario Lithium Refinery by 54%
Rock Tech Lithium says its planned lithium refinery in Red Rock, Ontario, will cost C$596 million, less than half the C$1.3 billion it estimated in August. The company has not explained what drove the cut.
What Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium Are Actually Used For, Beyond Jewellery
Rhodium-platinum gauze catalysts remain the established method for oxidizing ammonia into nitric oxide in industrial nitric acid production, with no widespread lower-cost replacement.
