ruthenium

Ruthenium is a chemical element with atomic number 44 and the symbol Ru. The metal is a member of the platinum group and usually found in platinum ores. Like other members of that group it is generally unreactive. Ruthenium is used in alloys, especially in electronic equipment, to increase hardness and corrosion resistance. A radioactive isotope of the metal is used in radiotherapy of eye tumors. Ruthenium tetroxide is used to express latent fingerprints.

Ruthenium was discovered on three different occasions, but the first two were not confirmed. In 1808 Jędrzej Śniadecki found the element in South American platinum ores, which he dubbed vestium after the recently discovered asteroid Vesta, but his work could not be verified. In 1828, Gottfried Osann found the element in platinum ore that had been mined in the Ural Mountains. Osann named the element ruthenium:

Das Gerücht von Aussindung eines neuen Metalls veranlafste Vorschläge zur Benennung desselben, unter welchen der, es Ruthenium zu nennen, gewiss der pas sendste ist.

The rumor of the discovery of a new metal gave rise to suggestions for its name, of which calling it ruthenium is certainly the most appropriate.

The element’s name comes from Ruthenia, originally a medieval Latin name for what is now southeastern Poland and Ukraine that is often used synonymously with Russia. The place name appears in English by the late fourteenth century in John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus in his De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things). Trevisa wrote:

Rvcia hatte Rutenia and is a prouynce of Messia [in þe march of þe lasse Asia].

(Russia is called Ruthenia and is a province of Messia [in the marches of lesser Asia].)

But again the discovery was called into question and Osann withdrew his claim of discovery. Karl Ernest Claus, an ethnic-German Russian, definitively found the element in 1844 and retained Osann’s name for it in honor of his homeland.

Sources:

Anglicus, Bartholomaeus. On the Properties of Things, vol. 2 of 3. John Trevisa, trans. M.C. Seymour, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, 15.130, 2:802.

Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements: Part 2—Turbulent Nineteenth Century.” Foundations of Chemistry, 8 December 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09451-w.

Osann, G. “Forsetzung der Untersuchung des Platins vom Ural.” Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 13, 1838, 283–97 at 281. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2011, s.v. ruthenium, n.; Ruthenian, n. & adj.

Image credit: Conrad Grünenberg, 1480. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.