ISSN 2056-5135 JOHNSON MATTHEY TECHNOLOGY REVIEW Johnson Matthey’s international journal of research exploring science and technology in industrial applications SPECIAL ISSUE 13 ‘200th Anniversary of Johnson Matthey’ July 2017 Published by Johnson Matthey www.technology.matthey.com © Copyright 2017 Johnson Matthey Johnson Matthey Technology Review is published by Johnson Matthey Plc. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any lawful purpose. You must give appropriate credit to the author and publisher. You may not use the material for commercial purposes without prior permission. You may not distribute modified material without prior permission. The rights of users under exceptions and limitations, such as fair use and fair dealing, are not affected by the CC licenses. www.technology.matthey.com JOHNSON MATTHEY TECHNOLOGY REVIEW www.technology.matthey.com Johnson Matthey’s international journal of research exploring science and technology in industrial applications Contents SPECIAL ISSUE 13 ‘200th Anniversary of Johnson Matthey’ July 2017 “The Founding of Johnson Matthey” Two Hundred Proud Years – the Bicentenary of Johnson Matthey By W. P. Griffith Original publication: Johnson Matthey Technol. Rev., 2017, 61, (3), 257 Percival Johnson’s First Publication By Donald McDonald Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1962, 6, (3), 112 George Matthey and the Building of the Platinum Industry By L. B. Hunt Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1979, 23, (2), 68 “Research and Collaboration at Johnson Matthey” Fifty Years of Research on the Platinum Metals By A. R. Powell Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1968, 12, (1), 22 The New Johnson Matthey Research Centre By Ian E. Cottington Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1976, 20, (3), 74 “Industrial Developments to the Present Day” The Beginnings of Chemical Engineering By Donald McDonald Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1957, 1, (2), 51 Note: all page numbers are as originally published JOHNSON MATTHEY TECHNOLOGY REVIEW www.technology.matthey.com Johnson Matthey’s international journal of research exploring science and technology in industrial applications Contents (continued) Geoffrey Wilkinson and Platinum Metals Chemistry By M. L. H. Green and W. P. Griffith Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1998, 42, (4), 168 Enhancement of Industrial Hydroformylation Processes by the Adoption of Rhodium-Based Catalyst: Part I By Richard Tudor and Michael Ashley Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 2007, 51, (3), 116 40 Years of Cleaner Air: The Evolution of the Autocatalyst By Chris Morgan Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 2014, 58, (4), 217 The 1980 MacRobert Award Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 1981, 25, (1), 22 The Role of Platinum in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells By Oliver T. Holton and Joseph W. Stevenson Original publication: Platinum Metals Rev., 2013, 57, (4), 259 Automotive Lithium-Ion Batteries By Peter Miller Original publication: Johnson Matthey Technol. Rev., 2015, 59, (1), 4 Platinum Group Metal Compounds in Cancer Chemotherapy By Christopher Barnard Original publication: Johnson Matthey Technol. Rev., 2017, 61, (1), 52 Note: all page numbers are as originally published https://doi.org/10.1595/205651317X695884 Johnson Matthey Technol. Rev., 2017, 61, (3), 257–261 JOHNSON MATTHEY TECHNOLOGY REVIEW www.technology.matthey.com Two Hundred Proud Years – the Bicentenary of Johnson Matthey Origins of the company and of today’s research activities in science and technology W. P. Griffith some of Johnson Matthey’s considerable recent Department of Chemistry, Imperial College, London non-pgm activities. SW7 2AZ, UK The Johnsons of Maiden Lane Email: [email protected] The forebears of Percival Norton Johnson, who in 1817 became the founder of the precursor of Johnson The story of the first 200 years of Johnson Matthey is Matthey, came from a family well acquainted with metal told. The firm was started in 1817 by Percival Johnson, assaying and refining (4, 5). His grandfather John but in 1851 George Matthey became a partner and the Johnson (1737–1786) had since 1777 been an assayer present name was derived from these two partners. of ores and metals, mostly silver, gold and some base A number of milestones in its illustrious history are metals, at No. 7, Maiden Lane (now part of Gresham reviewed, and some of the current activities of the Street between Wood Street and Foster Lane, London company are brought up to date, in this short article. EC2). His son, also John Johnson (1765–1831) was apprenticed to him in 1779, and on his father’s death Introduction took over his business, becoming the only commercial assayer in London. Around 1800 he became involved Thirty-five years ago a magisterial volume was published with the rapidly developing platinum metals industry, by Johnson Matthey on “A History of Platinum and using crude ‘platina’ smuggled to Britain via Jamaica its Allied Metals”, but despite its title that book is also from what is now Colombia. His biggest early customer a history of the firm itself from 1817 to 1982 (1). The was probably William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1826) present account marks Johnson Matthey’s bicentenary, (6), who made many purchases of platina between and is much indebted to that volume; many aspects of 1802–1819 from Johnson. Wollaston developed a the story have also been chronicled by Platinum Metals secret process for isolating platinum so pure that it could Review and its 2014 successor, the Johnson Matthey be fashioned into crucibles, chalices and other vessels Technology Review. Appropriate references to these and drawn into wires much thinner than a human hair; journals are given wherever possible. A Platinum Metals this business made him wealthy. In addition to isolating Review paper marking the firm’s sesquicentenary was rhodium and palladium in 1802 (6, 7), he sold to his published in 1967 (2), and a recent paper notes that friend and partner Smithson Tennant some ore from Johnson Matthey is one of the oldest British chemical which Tennant in 1804 isolated iridium and osmium firms still in existence (3). In this survey we concentrate (8, 9). on the firm’s formative years and, while highlighting its Percival Norton Johnson (1792–1866), was born on activities with platinum group metals (pgms), include 29th September 1792 at 6–7 Maiden Lane and was 257 © 2017 Johnson Matthey https://doi.org/10.1595/205651317X695884 Johnson Matthey Technol. Rev., 2017, 61, (3) apprenticed to his father John Johnson. In 1812, aged persuaded a reluctant Johnson to exhibit samples of only 19, he established his scientific credentials in a platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium at the Great paper showing that platinum alloyed with silver and gold Exhibition of 1851, for which they were awarded a would dissolve in nitric acid (10, 11). prize. Johnson took him into partnership in the same year and renamed the firm Johnson and Matthey. In The Early Years of Percival Johnson’s New Firm 1846 Percival Johnson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), his election being supported by The date of foundation of what 34 years later Michael Faraday (to whom the firm had given an ingot would be called Johnson Matthey is established as of platinum and some platinum wire for a famous Royal January 1st 1817 (1, 2). On that day Percival Johnson Institution discourse). left his father’s business and set up his own business In 1852 Johnson Matthey was appointed official as an ‘Assayer and Practical Mineralogist’ with his assayer to the Bank of England followed by official brother John Frederick as assistant, although he would refiner in 1861. A key event in the firm’s history was later collaborate with his father (2). The year 1817 was Matthey’s collaboration with Jules Henri Debray also that in which Humphry Davy showed that a platinum (1827–1888) for melting platinum on a large scale (18). wire (almost certainly provided by Johnson) would At the Paris Exhibition of 1867, Johnson Matthey was catalyse the combination of oxygen and hydrogen – the awarded two gold medals for its fine display of some first demonstration of heterogeneous catalysis (12, 13). 15,000 ounces of pgms in many forms, and as a result In 1818 Percival moved to 8 Maiden Lane and in George Matthey became a Chevalier of the Légion 1822 to 79 Hatton Garden, the latter being expanded in d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honours. In 1874 1850. In 1826 he brought in another talented assayer, the firm made the first standard metre and standard John Stokes, renaming the firm Johnson and Stokes in kilogram in 10% iridium-90% platinum alloy for the 1832. When Stokes died in 1835, William John Cock International Metric Commission. This kilogram is still (1813–1892), like Percival Johnson a founder member the standard measure and will be so until late 2018 of the Chemical Society in 1841 (14), joined Percival when it will be defined using a more modern technique. in the firm which was now called Johnson and Cock. It is now held in the the Bureau international des poids et William was the son of Thomas Cock (1782–1842), mesures in Sèvres (19). In a rare departure at the time Percival’s brother-in-law, also an assayer. from pgms, Johnson Matthey almost certainly provided William Cock was a considerable chemist and the high purity aluminium for the statue known as Eros, metallurgist, devising a new procedure for increasing erected in 1892 in Piccadilly Circus (20). the malleability of platinum, and published ‘On In 1879 Matthey was awarded an FRS: like Johnson Palladium – Its Extraction, Alloys &c.’ (15, 16) in and Cock he had published several papers, including one of the earliest of the Chemical Society’s papers.