45. Solution to Chemistry Problem

5. In 1803, a London newspaper reported the sale of a new metal in Forster´s shop, which no one had ever heard of. The chemist Chenivekis bought an ingot of this metal and tested it, and soon reported that the metal he had found was simply an alloy of platinum and mercury. In 1804, at a meeting of the London Royal Society, the famous chemist and physician Woollaston reported that while analyzing platinum, he had discovered a new element, which he named in honor of an asteroid recently discovered in the solar system. Woollaston admitted that he had obtained the new metal and offered it to Forster for sale to test how chemists would react to his discovery. The discovered metal has an amazing ability to dissolve hydrogen. What kind of metal is it? Write the equations of the reactions by which this element was discovered.