What molecule am I?
Palladium disulfide [palladium(IV) sulfide, or PdS2] is a grey-to-black crystalline powder. It is made by heating palladium(II) sulfide1 (PdS) or palladium(II) chloride2 (PdCl2) with excess elemental sulfur.
PdS2 has been known since 1956, when Fredrik Grønvold and Erling Røst at the University of Oslo (Blindern, Norway) described its properties, along with other palladium sulfides and its selenides and tellurides. They reported the crystal structure shown in the 3-D image above. An early use of PdS2 was cited in a 1974 USSR patent as a catalyst for the partial hydrogenation of cyclopentadiene to cyclopentene.
Fast-forward to 2021, when Yanfen Wan, Xiaohua Yu, and Peng Yang, and co-workers at Yunnan University and Kunming University of Science and Technology (both in Kunming, China) used a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method to prepare centimeter-scale artifacts of PdS2 that are only a few layers thick. The authors state that the physical properties of their materials “are very helpful in developing high-performance opto-electronic applications” such as field-effect transistors.
1. CAS Reg. No. 12125-22-3.
2. CAS Reg. No. 7647-10-1.
Palladium disulfide hazard information*
| Hazard class** | GHS code and hazard statement | |
|---|---|---|
| Skin corrosion/irritation, category 2 | H315—Causes skin irritation |  |
| Serious eye damage/eye irritation, category 2A | H319—Causes serious eye irritation | |
Specific target organ toxicity, single exposure, respiratory tract irritation, category 3 | H335—May cause respiratory irritation | |
*No safety data sheets for palladium disulfide are available. The information above is for palladium(II) sulfide.
**Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. Explanation of pictograms.
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Palladium disulfide
fast facts
| CAS Reg. No. | 12137-75-6 |
| SciFinder nomenclature | Palladium sulfide (PdS2) |
| Empirical formula | PdS2 |
| Molar mass | 170.55 g/mol |
| Appearance | Gray to black crystals or powder |
| Melting point | 600 °C (dec.) |
| Water solubility | Insoluble |
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