“…Alloy buttons weighing ~2 g each were prepared for compositions chosen (Tables I and II) from previous work (Ndlovu, 2006;Shongwe et al, 2008Shongwe et al, , 2010Mulaudzi, 2009;Samal and Cornish, 2010;Odera et al, 2012aOdera et al, , 2012bOdera, 2013) for a series of alloys based on Pt-Al-Cr-Ru with additions of Nb and/or V. The elemental components had 99.9% purity, except for V (99.6% purity). The samples were manufactured by arc-melting under argon, on a water-cooled copper hearth, with Ti as an oxygen-getter, and each was turned over and re-melted three times in an attempt to achieve homogeneity.…”