Wedding rings from Osmium.....more attractive than silver, more expensive than gold and more exclusive than platinum.

Q.I am soon to get married and have been considering what metal to get our wedding rings made from. There's no problem at all getting a jeweller to make a ring from Gold, Platimum, White Gold, Yellow Gold, Rose Gold or any combination of them all. Ever since chemistry at high school, I've always had the metal Osmium on my mind as a very dense metal (the densest), very inert (like gold, platinium etc). very rare ( cost 3 times of gold) with a silvery blue colour. All of these properties would make it appear to be just the right thing to get a attractive and unique wedding ring made from. I've approached one or two fairly specialist jewelers to see if they would be interested in making me a ring from Osmium (at a price) with no success. Could anyone help answer the following: 1) Does Osmium have such a high melting point that it is impossible to craft? 2) Is Osmium really silvery blue or does it make a very unattractive metal to look at? 3) Is it possible to purchase Osmium in a pure enough form to make jeweller from? 4) Would an Osmium ring really last a lifetime? 5) Have you ever hear of any jewellery made from Osmium before? 6) If so, where do I go?

A.I'm not sure from your message whether you have any intention of fabricating an Osmium ring yourself. Please be advised that the vapours are highly toxic, although I presume that such a noble metal is not toxic to the touch. The siser metal, Iridium is disappointingly brittle, so I wouldn't expect much from Osmium. Melting point is about 3045C. Gold is 1063C. Pt is 1769C. Tungsten is 3387C (Highest of the metals) and they can work with it so I don't think melting point is too big of a concern. I see 99.8% and 99.995% in a catalog. The question is, why do you want it pure? I imagine contamination by nonmetals would be a concern w/regard to workability. Alloys would be the way to go. Your platinum wedding band certainly isn't 5-9's Pt. You would have to take into account the quality of the care for your ring, and your life. As long as the ring wouldn't fracture, it should last quite a while. Nothing is completely indestructable. It (Osmium) appears to be pretty intolerant of careless manufacture and alloy hygeine. So you want something exclusive. Your noble metals are platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, palladium, iridium, gold, and silver. Other metals that have neat properties are tantalum, niobium, halfnium, and zirconium (often used in nuclear reactors -- be the first on your block with a wedding ring from a Russian missile submarine!). I'll assume that Pt, Au, and Ag are too mundane for your project. Halfnium: density of 13.09, mp=2222C, "strong, ductile, brilliant silver color, extremely corrosion resistant", about US$4.00/g in lump form for 99.9% purity, 1mm wire (99.97%) is about $1/cm. Zirconium: density=6.5, mp=1852C, "hard, lustrous, greyish-white, very corrosion resistant", $2.00/g for 99.2% lump, 1mm wire (99.5%) is about $0.10/cm. Niobium: density=8.57, mp=2468C, "strong, bluish-white, quite corrosion resistant", $0.40/g for 99.8% lump, 1mm wire (99.8%) is about $0.25/cm. Tantalum: density=16.6, mp=2996C, "gray, very hard, malleable, ductile, very corrosion resistant, completely inert w/respect to the human body", $1.50/g for 99.95% lump, 1mm wire (99.95%) is about $0.18/cm. Iridium: density=22.65, mp=2454C, "yellowish-white, very hard, brittle, most corrosion resistant metal known", 1mm wire (99.8%) is $67.00/cm. Ruthenium: density=12.45, mp=2500C, "hard, lustrous white", wire or lump not availiable, about $20/gm for -20 mesh powder. Rhodium: density=12.41, mp=1966C, "silvery-white, very reflective, durable, very corrosion resistant", $700/g for 99.5% pellet, 1mm wire (99.8) is about $55/cm. I'd have to say that your best bet would be a rhodium or iridium ring. Those metals have better workability than osmium and cost much more (Os is about $150/g for powder, no wire sold). Iridium is also just a bit more dense than osmium (22.65 vs 22.61). Of course, the most impressive (though very unhealthy, illegal, and hopefully unattainiable by the public-at-large) ring material would be Plutonium. It is pyrophoric though, so you could simulate the immediate feelings of a Pu ring with potassium. Pu has a quite high density and is very exclusive indeed! I'll soon be working with it for my graduate research, but I doubt they would let me take some home to play with.

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