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[Jeoshua]

Would it be good enough for both "native" minerals to be found as tiny one tile gemstone-like inclusions in minerals that otherwise contain the parent substance?  One tile's worth of native aluminum or platinum in an otherwise discontinuous matrix of a mineral that does verifiably contain that substance.

Example:
Pegamite is an Aluminum-based mineral.  Flecks and small inclusions of pure Aluminum have been found all over the world.  It's not enough to create an industry around, but these deposits of pure Al do exist.  Finding a one-tile deposit of Native Aluminum in a Pegamite vein or cluster would simulate the rarity of these deposits.

[hermes]

Actually, that source is not contradictory, it only seems so due to a misinterpretation of the meaning of the word "native". Read the very next sentence:

Platinum is usually alloyed with several per cent of iron and with smaller amounts of iridium, osmium, etc.

So this just confirmed that the so-called "Ferroan Platinum" does indeed contain other platinum-group metals.  These impurities make the metal to brittle to work with and they cannot be removed with heat alone. It takes a complex chemical process to do so.

So, unless you suspect that DF smelting technology includes massive chemical vats and temperatures far exceeding those of molten rock, then it is completely unrealistic that dwarves would be able to purify native platinum into something malleable.

I don't think every metal in the game comes out of the ground 100% pure.  Also, naturally occurring alloys change depending on where they are dug up in the world.  Just because alluvial deposits in the USA contain x% of iron doesn't mean some cluster in South Africa, nor under my mountain-home, should do too.  There is no standard, because nature doesn't have one.  Hence the hand-waving with the numbers in reality and in the game.  If you add even a sparing amount of fantasy-hand-waving on top of this, like an extra 200 degrees to a dwarven-smithy's forge, some extra chemicals he adds on his father's advice, I really don't see a problem.

[Arkenstone]

I don't think every metal in the game comes out of the ground 100% pure.  Also, naturally occurring alloys change depending on where they are dug up in the world.  Just because alluvial deposits in the USA contain x% of iron doesn't mean some cluster in South Africa, nor under my mountain-home, should do too.  There is no standard, because nature doesn't have one.  Hence the hand-waving with the numbers in reality and in the game.

I have several sources that say pure platinum deposits are unknown in nature.  Of course DF is not nature, but I'm working on the assumption that it should be as close as possible. (And don't quote me on this with reference to adamantine/unrealistic magma, as I am not going to go over that one again.)

If you add even a sparing amount of fantasy-hand-waving on top of this, like an extra 200 degrees to a dwarven-smithy's forge, some extra chemicals he adds on his father's advice, I really don't see a problem.

Here is an example of the chemical process in question.  As you can see, it's a bit more involved than just adding a few chemicals during the smelting process.


I've updated the OP with a bunch of sources and an example of what's needed to refine platinum.  It still needs more work before it's up to date with the current argument though.

[Jeoshua]

Depends on how you define "deposit", really.

Does it exist in veins ([ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:x:VEIN:x])?  No.
Does it exist in clusters measurable by several meters across? ([ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:x:SMALL_CLUSTER:x])? No.

Does it exist in nature, on Earth, in small inclusions in other minerals in a relatively pure form? (ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:x:CLUSTER_ONE:x])? Yes.


Platinum is found associated with:

• Chromite
• Olivine
• Enstatite
• Pyroxene
• Magnetite
• Gold

Aluminum is more rare, owing to it's chemical reactivity, but can nevertheless be found in it's pure form as small flakes in:

• Cryolite
• Bauxite
• Feldspars
• Granite

[Sadrice]

If you add even a sparing amount of fantasy-hand-waving on top of this, like an extra 200 degrees to a dwarven-smithy's forge, some extra chemicals he adds on his father's advice, I really don't see a problem.

Here is an example of the chemical process in question.  As you can see, it's a bit more involved than just adding a few chemicals during the smelting process.

Actually, that could conceivably be doable by dwarves.  First you need aqua regia, which was first described by Pseudo Geber in the 13th century, but didn't become common for a while afterwards (probably largely because of alchemists being alchemists and keeping it to themselves).  It isn't that hard to make, though.  You need Sal Ammoniac (ammonium chloride) which isn't in DF but would fit well.  It tends to be found in a fairly pure form near volcanism, especially fumaroles, which also aren't in DF but would be cool.  Then you need nitric acid, which may have first been described by the real Geber around 800, but is definitely mentioned by our friend Pseudo Geber.  For that, you need saltpeter (in DF already) with alum (preparable from alunite), and maybe sand and/or sulfuric acid (known since forever, Sumerians at least.  Makeable from Saltpeter and Brimstone), depending on who's recipe you follow. 


Now that you have your aqua regia (and lose an apprentices hand in it by accident), so long as it's very fresh, you can dissolve your platinum group metals.  Only platinum and palladium go into solution, the rest stay solid in the ore, which you remove.  Then you add a bit of Sal Ammoniac, and the platinum forms a chloride salt and precipitates.  Filter that out, and heat it up to about 370 C, and the chlorine leaves, leaving pure powdered platinum.  Unfortunately, I think this needs to get up to 1700 C to be turned into solid metal, which is much hotter than magma, and a fair bit hotter than a porcelain kiln.  If dwarven smelting of adamantine involves melting, it would easily be doable, but that's a pretty ridiculous temperature.  You could alloy it with gold to make it useable, though.


All in all, the chemistry isn't actually impossible for dwarves.  It's highly unlikely that it would occur to them to do it without a time traveler walking them through it or something, and they probably wouldn't be able to produce solid pieces of pure platinum, but it is sorta possible for them to get pure powdered platinum.

[Jeoshua]

Remember the Fantasy element of it all tho.  These are Dwarves, known throughout myth as the masters of rock, metal, and everything Dwarfy.

They could make something that hot, bet your life on it.  If that's the only real problem with getting Platinum, then the Dwarves would have overcome it.  Fire spirits, Magma elementals, ludicrous amounts of coke stoking a furnace rivaled only by that of the Gods themselves... if anyone could ever do it, it would be Dwarves.  More likely than Humans, even.

It's harder to justify Aluminum as a smeltable thing, since control over electricity is not one of the technologies generally ascribed to our diminutive, bearded friends.

It needn't be from a time traveler, either.  This is Middle to High Fantasy here.  The Dwarven God of Metal could have given the process to one of their charge in a vision.  Even in real life, techniques unknown to modern science have supposedly been passed on in more fantastical visions than that (such as the secret of Ayahuasca, a psychoactive potion, mixture of a DMT bearing plant with an MAO-inhibitor containing plant, supposedly given to the shamans of their respective tribes in a vision given by one of the plant-spirits, itself).

[Arkenstone]

Does it exist in nature, on Earth, in small inclusions in other minerals in a relatively pure form? (ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:x:CLUSTER_ONE:x])? Yes.

Frankly, I find that even more unrealistic.  What you're doing is commuting a larger but impure sample into a tiny but pure one.

For aluminum, it's astonishing enough that it can occur in tiny flakes in a native form in multiple samples from the same area, but a single lode large enough to make something without any similar deposits nearby?  You'd be called a fraud by the modern scientific community if you claimed discovery of such an anomaly.  Besides, even if some crazed dwarf spent a few months smashing rocks and gathering the tiny flecks of metal, I doubt there'd be enough overall for even a ring of the stuff.

As for platinum, "relatively pure" is not pure enough.  Evidence indicates that even a small percentage of impurities is enough to distinctly alter the metal's properties.  If dwarves could remove these impurities at all, they'd effectively end up with the same amount of material that they started off with.

Actually, that could conceivably be doable by dwarves.

Hence why platinum could be reintroduced as a product of alchemy.  So doing would still be an exception though, as platina itself is still unworkable.

They could make something that hot, bet your life on it.  If that's the only real problem with getting Platinum, then the Dwarves would have overcome it.

It isn't.  You need more than heat to separate platinum from the palladium, osmium, iridium, et cetera; you need large amounts of chemicals and specialist equipment.  (Take a gander at the updated OP for an example.)

I'm not saying that the dwarves wouldn't figure it out eventually, but by that time they'll probably have figured electricity out as well.  Still though, as I said I'm not adverse to pure platinum being possible in the alchemist's lab, only in a furnace.  As Sadrice pointed out the dwarves have everything they need to theoretically do it, if not on an industrial scale.


I've updated the OP once more with some clarification (might evolve further into a true FAQ, who knows).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the sources (I forget which) mentions that the Roman historian Pliny (again, I forget which Pliny) had identified platina.  So, add that one to the Central Americans and the Ancient Egyptians (who got it from Nubia).


PS:
I think I may have hit the motherload (no pun intended) of sources!

[Jeoshua]

No I read the post.  Nobody ninja'd me.  I wasn't implying that alchemy wasn't used, merely that after alchemy was used that the temperature needed would be achievable in a fantasy world.  It's hard to define exactly how hot it COULD get, since we're talking Dwarven Fantasy Technology here, but 1300 C doesn't seem totally outrageous to me.  Basically anything below the point at which things would turn to plasma isn't completely rediculous,  especially considering that to get to that stage we've already established the need for some form of alchemical processes.  And that says that there is access to one or more reagents that would burn at incredibly high temperature if set aflame.

And after all, 350 C is really low in terms of fires.  A smoldering cigarette is hotter than that.

I think that the biggest issue reguarding the frequency of these metals, tho, is the difference between "existance" and "commercial importance".  For example, Bauxite is found all over, but is a relatively poor source for Aluminum by weight.  Nevertheless, the fact that it is commonplace is the very reason it is what is used for the production of Aluminum, today.  There are sources much richer in Aluminum by weight, but they are much rarer and the process for extracting the Al from them much trickier.

The minerals in question do not, however, need to be "economically viable" to exist.  As I see it, a more realistic treatment of both Platinum and Aluminum would basically cut them out of the running for ever basing a fort's economy on them, no matter the technology level employed.  But they could still exist and would be useful for making specialty or high-dorfbuck items and furniture.

[Arkenstone]

I wasn't implying that alchemy wasn't used, merely that after alchemy was used that the temperature needed would be achievable in a fantasy world.

I should hope so, as pure platinum is malleable enough to be workable at room temperature.  The trick is getting it to that pure form.

As I see it, a more realistic treatment of both Platinum and Aluminum would basically cut them out of the running for ever basing a fort's economy on them,

That is exactly correct.


I've done a lot of research, and the only form of platinum I've found that I believe dwarves would be able to use at all is in the form of placer deposits.  The platinum content of all other ores was measured in grams/ton.

The only question is if these deposits (specifically those of the so-called "Ferroan Platinum") contain other platinum-group elements in them (other than palladium, which is itself very malleable).  More research and cites to follow.

[runlvlzero]

Spoiler: Just this alone is good argument for removing platinum from "smelting" (click to show/hide)

The classical procedure for separating the platinum metals begins with a mineral concentrate obtained as described above. This concentrate is leached with aqua regia, which dissolves the platinum and palladium and leaves the other metals as solids in the leach residue. The platinum is precipitated from solution with ammonium chloride, and the resulting crude platinum salt is recovered by filtration and then heated to decompose it to a powdered metallic form. The metal is redissolved in aqua regia, then reprecipitated with ammonium chloride and calcined to pure metal. The palladium, which remained in solution when the platinum was precipitated, is now precipitated by the addition of ammonia. After the palladium salts are recovered by filtration, they are redissolved and reprecipitated to form a pure salt, and this is converted to metallic form, usually by chemical reduction with formic acid.

I can get onboard with what Arkenstone is saying here. That is not terribly complex, but its also not obvious or as simple as 1 2 3. It also doesn't look like it would even be possible or easy to just smelt platinum bearing ore due to the impurities. The processes talked about do not really have much do with smelting as a practice.

So, we should probably leave platinum to be modded in via alchemy.

I would also like to add that while it is a complex process, the chemicals probably wouldn't need to be produced in industrial quantities, I bet a barrel of each would do. So I don't see industrial chemical companies as a good argument for it not existing before a certain time period, just a good argument for it not existing in huge quantities, or in the public domain of common knowledge.

I change my vote to no platinum smelting based on all the information provided.

Aluminum Oxide smelting is much much harder according to http://science.howstuffworks.com/aluminum3.htm and I don't see dwarves using electricity. So magic would have to be the only alternative to other advanced smelting for them. So I would say no aluminum either.

Thanks for the enlightening discussion.

[bluea]

I'd really rather have a couple complete-fantasy alloys added than do anything at all to Al or Pt.

Candy-Gold
Candy-Lead

One for pure decorative OMG factor. And the other to (a) make lead do -something- and (b) allow decent candy-alloy versions for things-that-require-heft. Candy maces are ridiculous, for instance.

Adding 'Candy-Silver' gets us to the name 'Mithril' if so desired.

[UHaulDwarf]

I'd really rather have a couple complete-fantasy alloys added than do anything at all to Al or Pt.

Candy-Gold
Candy-Lead

One for pure decorative OMG factor. And the other to (a) make lead do -something- and (b) allow decent candy-alloy versions for things-that-require-heft. Candy maces are ridiculous, for instance.

Adding 'Candy-Silver' gets us to the name 'Mithril' if so desired.

I understand Candy-Lead, there is no better eye-candy then Candy. Adding any other decorative metal to candy is silly and redundant.

[Sadrice]

Kind of like how everything but the diamond in a ring is redundant?

[hermes]

Spoiler: Just this alone is good argument for removing platinum from "smelting" (click to show/hide)

The classical procedure for separating the platinum metals begins with a mineral concentrate obtained as described above. This concentrate is leached with aqua regia, which dissolves the platinum and palladium and leaves the other metals as solids in the leach residue. The platinum is precipitated from solution with ammonium chloride, and the resulting crude platinum salt is recovered by filtration and then heated to decompose it to a powdered metallic form. The metal is redissolved in aqua regia, then reprecipitated with ammonium chloride and calcined to pure metal. The palladium, which remained in solution when the platinum was precipitated, is now precipitated by the addition of ammonia. After the palladium salts are recovered by filtration, they are redissolved and reprecipitated to form a pure salt, and this is converted to metallic form, usually by chemical reduction with formic acid.

I can get onboard with what Arkenstone is saying here. That is not terribly complex, but its also not obvious or as simple as 1 2 3. It also doesn't look like it would even be possible or easy to just smelt platinum bearing ore due to the impurities. The processes talked about do not really have much do with smelting as a practice.

So, we should probably leave platinum to be modded in via alchemy.

Hmm.. Perhaps via some noble alchemist.  But all this stuff about refining certain types of native platinum doesn't really sway me.  I think your arguments are all very anthropocentric, focused on human history and the happenstance of what kind of native deposits were found when.  We can extract oil from tar sands or gas from shale rock nowadays, but that doesn't mean there aren't easier or higher quality sources available.

To summarise; just because platinum is by and large extracted from relatively impure desposits does not mean that purer desposits couldn't be nor haven't been found.  I think you guys are strawman-ing this a bit.

Secondly, I remember visiting the tomb of Napoleon III (IIRC) in Paris when I was younger, and was delighted and surprised to see an aluminium cutlery set that was considered the height of wealth and status at the time.  Now I think that that set was made with early electrolysis extraction, but the image is such a beautiful one; the head of a kingdom using aluminium knives and forks.  Again, unoxidized aluminium is of course rare, very very rare, but just a bit could provide something special and exciting for the player.

It's a game, a fantasy world that doesn't even have a real topography.  Yes, Toady just put in real values for densities and stuff, but that's because they are used to model weapon interactions and thus enhance gameplay.  I wouldn't be too disappointed if aluminium and platinum were removed, but the game would be a little duller, no?  If I wanted to dig all day and not find pure and super rare metal, I'd take a shovel to my lawn.

[Jeoshua]

3d mineral veins ARE on the books, and will be put into the game as soon as Toady gets around to messing with terrain.  At that point I'd bet, given how he seems to work in chunks and spurts, that a lot of work will be done on the terrain itself.  Likely there will be some concept of mineral layers and flows as well... so the "terrain" will be fixed at that time.