Ru

Ruthenium · Ru

Ruthenium is a rare transition metal belonging to the platinum group that is highly resistant to corrosion and wear. It is primarily utilized as a versatile catalyst in chemical synthesis and as an alloying agent to improve the hardness and durability of other precious metals.

Crystal structure of Ru (hexagonal, P63/mmc (No. 194))
Ground-state structure · Materials Project
Overview

Key Properties

Cross-validated computational properties for Ruthenium, aggregated across 5 databases.

Band Gap

Metallic / not reported

Energy Above Hull

0.000 eV/atom
Best (lowest) across sources

Stability

On hull (stable)
3 DFT sources

Structures

25
5 databases, 4 space groups
Validation

Cross-Source DFT Agreement

How well independent DFT databases agree on the thermodynamics of Ru. Tight agreement means computed properties can be trusted without re-running calculations.

Agreement Score

1.00 / 1.00
Trust tier: high

Hull Spread

0.000 eV
EAH spread across sources

Sources Compared

3
jarvis, materials_project, nomad

Space Group Consensus

All match
Crystallography

Reported Structures

Lowest-energy structures reported for Ru, ranked by energy above hull.

Space GroupCrystal SystemBand Gap (eV)E above hull (eV/atom)E/atom (eV)Density (g/cm³)
P63/mmc (No. 194)hexagonal0.000.0000-25.42512.38
Fm-3m (No. 225)cubic0.000.1310-25.29412.32
No. 0unknown6.23
No. 0unknown6.03
No. 0unknown1.42
Fm-3m (No. 225)Cubic12.31
Fm-3m (No. 225)Cubic13.40
Fm-3m (No. 225)Cubic11.99
Im-3m (No. 229)
Fm-3m (No. 225)
Im-3m (No. 229)
No. 0unknown6.18
Uses

Applications

Where Ruthenium is used.

Electrical contactsHard disk drive coatingsChemical catalysisJewelry manufacturingSuperalloy additives
Reference

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Ruthenium, answered from cross-validated data.

What is Ru?

Ruthenium is a rare transition metal belonging to the platinum group that is highly resistant to corrosion and wear. It is primarily utilized as a versatile catalyst in chemical synthesis and as an alloying agent to improve the hardness and durability of other precious metals.

More questions
What is Ru used for?
Ruthenium (Ru) is used in electrical contacts, hard disk drive coatings, chemical catalysis, jewelry manufacturing, and superalloy additives.
What is the band gap of Ru?
Ruthenium (Ru) is computed to be metallic (no band gap) in the reported DFT structures.
Is Ru a metal, semiconductor, or insulator?
Computed band structures report no gap, so it is metallic.
Is Ru thermodynamically stable?
Yes — Ruthenium (Ru) sits on the convex hull (energy above hull 0 eV/atom), i.e. on hull (stable).
What is the crystal structure of Ru?
The lowest-energy reported polymorph of Ruthenium (Ru) is hexagonal symmetry, space group P63/mmc (No. 194).
What is the density of Ru?
The computed density of the ground-state structure of Ruthenium (Ru) is 12.38 g/cm³.
How many polymorphs of Ru are known?
25 structures of Ru are reported across 5 databases, spanning 4 distinct space groups.
What elements does Ru contain?
Ruthenium (Ru) contains Ru (1 element).
Where does the data for Ru come from?
Ru data is cross-referenced from materials_project, cod, mpaloe, nomad, jarvis.
Explore

Related Compounds

Other Platinum-Group Alloy Catalysts in the database.

Data sources & attribution
  • materials_project — Data from the Materials Project. Cite: Jain et al., APL Materials 1, 011002 (2013).
  • cod — Data from the Crystallography Open Database. Cite: Grazulis et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 40, D420 (2012).
  • mpaloe — Data from mpaloe.
  • nomad — Data from NOMAD. Cite: Draxl & Scheffler, J. Phys. Mater. 2, 036001 (2019).
  • jarvis — Data from JARVIS (NIST). Cite: Choudhary et al., npj Comp. Mater. 6, 173 (2020).

Analyze Ru in the Lattice Graph platform

Polymorph comparison, confidence scoring, supply-chain risk, and patent monitoring — across 53 integrated data sources.

Explore the Platform →