Rhodium is one of the more expensive metals that we get to use. Back in graduate school my first project was to make a rhodium pyrazolyl borate complex. After going through about 5 g of RhCl3, my advisor put me on a different project. It think that was about a $500 mistake. I never was able to make the rhodium complex, but Doug Wick was able to make it a few years later.
Paper I was trying to follow.
Bill and Doug’s paper with the successful rhodium synthesis
Rhodium prices for the last 5 years. Really went nuts in 2021 at about $25,000 an oz.
So I am sitting on some RhCl3 from a previous project. Time to sell the rhodium stash and retire to Roatan to do some scuba diving.
