Using Palladium in White Gold Jewelry
by Jill Renee
http://www.danforthdiamond.com
White gold jewelry can cause allergic reactions in some
people. This is due to the fact that the majority of white
gold jewelry is manufactured using alloys containing nickel
as the bleaching agent and a percentage of the population is
allergic to nickel. For these individuals, contact with
nickel can result in dermatological problems that range from
a mild skin rash to severe open sores and permanent scaring.
In Europe, there are laws governing the use of nickel in
jewelry. The European law is known as "The Nickel Directive"
and states that no nickel can be used in a material that
sits in an open wound, such as after piercing, until healing
is complete.
What is a jewelry buyer to do when faced with this
information? First of all relax, most people do not have
severe reactions to nickel. And jewelers are starting to use
alloys that contain less nickel to develop white gold jewelry.
Some nickel-free white gold alloys were originally developed
in the 1920s using palladium as the primary bleaching agent.
Palladium is part of the platinum group of metals. It is a
steel-white metal, does not tarnish in air, and is the least
dense and lowest melting of the platinum group metals.
Palladium has very good corrosion and tarnish resistance,
and it mixes well with gold, offering almost complete
homogenization throughout the range of gold-palladium
compositions. All these factors make it a good choice for
white gold jewelry manufacturing. It also yields alloys with
excellent mechanical properties superior in many respects to
the nickel-whites which can be difficult to work with and
contain pockets of gold and nickel because the two metals
don't like to be mixed. Jewelry made from a palladium/gold
alloy will not result in allergic reactions.
You might be asking: "If palladium is so much better than
nickel to make white gold, why don't all jewelers use it?"
The answer is cost. Palladium is a bit more expensive to
use. The cost of an ounce of palladium is around $300
currently and consumers don't like paying higher prices for
what appears to be the same jewelry product. However, once
people know the facts about nickel white gold and the
allergic risks it presents many are willing to pay a little
more.
Another white metal on the horizon is 950 Palladium. Some
jewelry manufacturers are making product from new palladium
alloys that can be cast into jewelry. This is a wonderful
metal because it is a bright white color, very similar to
platinum, but has a much lower price. It is still relatively
new so jewelers are still learning how to work best with
this metal. Keep your eyes open though, because you will
soon be seeing more of this product, especially with the
cost of platinum currently above $1,000 an ounce.
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