How to recycle Jewelry Grade Rhodium?

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Chris1985

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Jan 22, 2018
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Hey everyone, I usually recycle rhodium plated white gold using the aqua regia method. The Rhodium plating is the first metal to separate from the rest of the gold alloy, so I've accumulated a worthy amount of rhodium shavings from the process. I'm wondering if there is a certain chemical formula that I can use to recycle the shavings into jewelry grade rhodium for later use in electroplating. Any information will help, thanks.
 
I'm facing the same challenge.

I'm starting to learn how to make a rhodium plating bath starting with pure rhodium and then to procede with these flakes.

I still didn't analyse the flakes but certainly they aren't pure enough.

To purify there's 2 routes that I found in Brauer (Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry Volume 2) one of them is in Ammen's book (Recovery and Refining of Precious Metals):

Impure Rh solution then is made K3[Rh(NO2)6] or (NH4)3[Rh(NO2)6] that is a solid and must be filtered, this solid can be dissolved and reprecipitated.
or
Impure Rh solution then is made [RhCl(NH3)5]Cl2 that is a solid and must be filtered, this solid can be dissolved and reprecipitated.

These procedures are oversimplified (more information can be found in these books), and I do not garante that it will work. I'm searching that myself.

To dissolve rhodium you have 2 main routes, dissolve in boiling, refluxing, sulfuric acid or fuse with potassium/sodium hydrogen sulfate or potassium pyrosulfate.
 
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