Palladium Jewelry

Palladium itself has been used as a precious metal in jewelry since 1939, as an alternative to platinum for making white gold. This use resulted in the naturally white color of palladium which required no rhodium plating. Palladium is proportionally much lighter than platinum. Similar to gold, palladium can be beaten into a thin leaf form as thin as 100 nm (1/250,000 in). Unlike platinum, palladium may discolor upon heating to above 400 °C; it is relatively brittle and reacts with strong acids such as nitric acid.
Palladium is one of the three most popular metals used to make white gold alloys (nickel and silver can also be used). Palladium-gold is a more expensive alloy than nickel-gold, but seldom causes allergic reactions (though certain cross-allergies with nickel may occur).
When platinum was declared a strategic government resource during World War II, many jewelry bands were made out of palladium. As recently as September 2001,[54] palladium was more expensive than platinum and rarely used in jewelry also due to the technical obstacle of casting. However the casting problem has been resolved and its use in jewelry has increased because of a large spike in the price of platinum and a drop in the price of palladium.
Prior to 2004, the principal use of palladium in jewelry was the manufacture of white gold. In early 2004, when gold and platinum prices rose steeply, China began fabricating significant volumes of palladium jewelry and used 37 tonnes of palladium for this purpose in 2005. Changes of the relative price between palladium and platinum after 2008 lowered demand for palladium to 17.4 tonnes in 2009.