Platinum has an image problem. While the declining price of the precious metal — which now tracks at less than half that of gold — should make it a more attractive option to jewellers, many remain hesitant to use it because of its reputation for being difficult to work with. However, a new alloy developed by an Oxford-based metallurgist could now change this.
Inoveo, which launched to great fanfare at the JCK trade show in Las Vegas last month, is a new alloy mix that is 95 per cent pure platinum and 5 per cent a proprietary mix of metals that includes ruthenium. It is 40 per cent harder and, therefore, more durable and able to hold gemstones more securely. It also has a longer-lasting bright-white shine, whereas traditional platinum tends to become patinated quickly.
These are the consumer-facing benefits, but it is the manufacturing capabilities where the innovation will be felt. Standard platinum alloys are prone to porosity during the casting process, and platinumsmiths must take additional time to fix any holes that emerge. Another downside is that platinum tends to damage tools, as residue sticks to drill heads. It also requires much higher temperatures. The melting point of 18-carat gold is 926C, while platinum needs temperatures in excess of 1,768C.
All these factors mean that, compared with gold or silver, working with platinum is time-consuming and costly. This negates many of the savings made, versus gold, in the per gramme metal price, particularly as platinum designs are heavier than gold because of the former’s density (21.4g/cm³ versus gold’s 19.3g/cm³).
Inoveo claims to solve these production problems by offering four times less porosity thanks to a higher fluidity, a melting point closer to gold’s, and a reduction in wear on tools — as it is gummier and so less likely to transfer. It also claims to speed up production — increasing potential yields four fold — as it can be polished 40 per cent faster than traditional alloys, and can be machined up to four times faster.
These findings emerged from blind tests carried out at casting houses in the US. The manufacturers were given a standard platinum alloy and a batch of Inoveo with which to make diamond-set pieces of jewellery, and were asked to monitor and feed back the results.
The company overseeing the trials was Inoveo’s inventor, Alloyed, an experimental metals company that was spun out from Oxford university in 2017. It was approached by Anglo American, the mining company that accounts for about 40 per cent of the world’s platinum supply, in 2019, about devising an alloy to address some of the common problems in the market.
It is in the miner’s interest to boost jewellery demand for platinum as the metal’s main use is in catalytic converters for internal combustion-powered motor vehicles, which are gradually being phased out.
The challenge for Alloyed was that, as platinum is a precious metal, the purity had to remain at 95 per cent — giving it just 5 per cent of the mass to play with, but a long list of demands to meet.
It took two years to land on a formula that would address Anglo American’s main concerns. Alloyed was able to accelerate development thanks to its computational platform, which uses digital modelling and artificial intelligence to cycle through millions of potential compositions much faster than traditional laboratory methods.
“The conventional approach to alloy development is just to get down to the lab, mix some materials up, and it’s very based on trial and error,” says Alloyed programme manager Chloe Cunningham. “With our approach, we were able to save a significant amount of time, as well as resources, given we were working with precious metals. It gave us a very short list of alloy compositions that we were then able to take [to the lab].” The traditional method might have taken a decade — with no guarantee the company would come up with a usable mix.
The Las Vegas launch of Inoveo — supported by 10 metre-high video walls explaining its benefits to JCK’s 30,000 trade visitors — was led by Platinum Guild International, a marketing body set up to promote the interests of the metal, and jewellery wholesaler Stuller, which has the exclusive distribution rights to Inoveo and will be producing it at its refinery using Alloyed’s formula.
PGI president Jenny Luker says this innovation could not have come at a better time, as demand for platinum jewellery is on the rise, with the US, India and Japan proving to be strong markets. “This is our 10th year of increases and, with the current pricing situation and the new alloy, we have a very good feeling for the rest of the year,” she says. “[The response to Inoveo] has been overwhelming — beyond our expectations.”
While some seasoned platinumsmiths might switch over, Luker believes the real target market for Inoveo, which will be sold at a premium, will be jewellers who have not worked in platinum before — particularly volume players in both manufacturing and retail, because of the potential for higher production yields.
At the moment, Inoveo is only available in casting grain, but Luker says that sheet and wire should be available soon. Cunningham says Alloyed is close to finalising an alloy alteration that will also allow refiners to create an Inoveo powder for 3D printing.
Separately, in China, development work is being carried out to create alloys that are durable enough to be used as findings (small components such as clasps and jump rings), along with experimentation with diamond cutting, electroplating and electroforming. Meanwhile, PGI’s finished jewellery consumer brand, Platinum Born, which launched in the US in 2018 and the UK this year, has been innovating with faceting work that mimics the presence of diamonds, and with lighter, flexible designs.