Palladium is a chemical element with symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas.
Three reasons Palladium stands out
1
Used in car catalysts, it helps to reduce harmful emissions.
2
It can absorb up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen gas, making it useful for hydrogen storage.
3
Its price surpassed that of gold in 2019 due to surging demand from the automotive industry.
A metal that drinks hydrogen
Palladium can absorb an extraordinary amount of hydrogen into gaps within its crystal lattice. It is also a versatile catalyst, accelerating hydrogenation and carbon-carbon bond formation. Jewelry uses its pale, corrosion-resistant surface, while vehicle exhaust systems consume much of the available supply.
Recognizing Palladium in Elementle
If Palladium is the mystery element, guesses below atomic number 46 point up and guesses above it point down. Its symbol is Pd: a green letter matches the same position in that symbol, while a yellow letter belongs in another position.
The family clue turns green for transition metal guesses. Compare Rhodium (Rh), number 45 and Silver (Ag), number 47: they share the family clue, but their atomic numbers and symbols help you tell them apart.
Values are reference data, not a specification for every temperature, pressure, or allotrope. Unknown properties are left unavailable. Superheavy-element predictions remain uncertain.
The introduction and original editorial story are adapted from Wikipedia contributors via Periodic-Table-JSON. Element descriptions and their adaptations are available under CC BY-SA 3.0. Numerical attributes use the PubChem periodic-table dataset, retrieved September 22, 2026.