[Jules18]

Wikipedia says crucibles are made from "inert metal", but how can a metal be inert if all the inert elements are on the nonmetal side of the periodic table? 

[Borek]

Inert like noble.

[renge ishyo]

I think by "inert metal" they just meant that it is made out of a metal that is a very unreactive metal at the temperatures you are using to analyze the materials inside the crucible. If you think about it, it would be intensely stupid to make the crucible out of a material that became reactive when you applied heat to it because it would start reacting with the compound you are trying to analyze. Even some of the "inert gases" can react in certain circumstances (I've read that you can react fluorine with Xenon and Krypton if you try hard enough), so the whole "inert" thing is relative anyways.

[adnan]

In crucibles, Inert metals reffer to those metals that offer

• High temperature strength and high melting point

• Oxidation resistance in air and oxygen

• Corrosion resistance in acids and melted salts

Examples are zirconium and platinum

[Jules18]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm wondering if you would you have to combine a metal with something else to make it behave inertly?  Because no metals have full valence shells, so what I^,ve been taught so far would lead me to believe that means they would want to react ...    So why don^,t they ?

[adnan]

Third row of transition elements is not reactive and sometime called as noble metals.

For details check here,
http://www.chemcases.com/cisplat/cisplat06.htm

[408]

Some metal oxides are great crucible materials ex alumina, zirconia.