Alex Tullo

Chemists Shopping Victoriously

Posted by Alex Tullo on May 13, 2008 in Chemistry is Everywhere

On eBay this weekend I learned a couple of things. First, the #1 issues of Darkhawk and Sleepwalker that I have kept in plastic since my 1991 comic book phase are worth exactly what I paid for them. And second, issues of C&EN are not only available for sale, but are actually more valuable. The “eBay store” NightSpirits is selling relatively recent issues for the “buy it now” price of either $1.50 or $3.99. I would have thought that the April 2003 issue, where we juxtaposed a molecule with an arachnid on the cover to tout a story about scorpionate ligands (to hammer home just how much the ligands look like a scorpion), would have been more sought after by collectors. There is also a bound Vol. 61 (the second half of 1983) for sale for $18.95 from Cecil’s Book Sales. I was actually looking for an article from 1983 the other day in the library at C&EN’s New Jersey office and the issue I was looking for was missing.

I wonder how much boxes full of C&ENs without the address labels could go for.

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Who’s Making All That Racket In The Parking Lot?

Posted by Alex Tullo on May 2, 2008 in Chemistry is Everywhere

Motorists have learned to take down the window mounts of their GPS systems when they leave their cars unattended. Now comes a crime spree they can do little to prevent. Catalytic converters are being stolen in increasing numbers. Thieves crawl under parked cars and saw—or if they’re bolted on, unscrew–the catalytic converter canisters right off the exhaust. The crime wave has become a nuisance noticed in Long Island, California, many points in between, and even the U.K.

What the thieves are after are the platinum group metals—platinum, palladium, and rhodium—that reduce nitrogen oxides and oxidize carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in auto exhaust fumes. These metals have become even more precious in recent years. According to British metals and catalyst supplier Johnson Matthey, platinum prices have increased by more than 80% over the past two years, hitting nearly $2,000 per troy ounce in April. Meanwhile, palladium costs have increase 37% and rhodium prices have more than doubled, reaching $450 and $9,063 per ounce, respectively. Granted, even though the levels of platinum group metals in the converters are measured in grams, they seemingly contain enough of the stuff to fetch more than $50.

The canisters don’t contain the metals in an easy-to-fence coin. They are coated onto a ceramic substrate. Thus, they must be chemically extracted. One wonders if there are organized crime operations dedicated to this or whether illicit converters are showing up in normal catalytic converter recycling channels.

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