Verifying Catalytic Converter Recycling Process

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Joined
Apr 11, 2018
Messages
9
Hello all,

Im new to this forum so apologies if this question was already asked or if i may have posted in the wrong section.

So my question is if the process i have for refining precious metals from catalytic converters is missing anything or if i have overlooked any dangerous outcomes. (i do know of the dangerous gases let off in the process of heating aqua regia)

My Process (simplified): Grind cat into fine powder, remove base metals with HCl, dissolve precious metals with aqua regia, precipitate platinum with ammonium chloride, filter, precipitate palladium with dimethylglyoxime, filter, precipitate any rhodium with ammonium nitrate (if any is present in solution), filter.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
 
While it's clear you have done some reading, your plans are not economically feasible.

By my reasonably educated estimates, I'd have to have a quarter of a million dollars to enter the cat business, even then the other cat buyers would try to cut me out of the business very very quickly.

I know people that have done what you are proposing, not exactly, as some of your chemistry is off, but essentially tried to make money buying cats, doing all the labor, processing themselves. I think that Kurtak has tried to do it as well. Every one has found it to be an economical disaster, especially so once losses and waste management are factored in.
 
Study the forum. The person you want to contact is an active member here.

To do it competitively will cost you money for the intellectual property. Even then, the biggest challenge in cats isn't the recovery, it's the acquisition and cash flow. If it was recovery, the person you are looking to contact wouldn't offer consulting services.
 
The guys are telling you the truth, you cannot beat the large refiners at cat refining as chemical leaching will leave more behind than that charge if your dealing in volume, another point to take note of is that when you have PGM salts as you will you have some very toxic solutions which can cause serious irreversible illness.
 
When you say intellectual property do you mean we may be using a process which is technically someones elses intellectual property or our methods should be claimed as ours?

Also, for the PGM salts and their toxicity, do you have pointers for the proper care of these materials? I will have a fume hood for digestion and safety attire but is there something im missing?

My journey ahead of me will be long, as of right now i am just looking for pointers on the small scale lab tests i plan to preform. I also already have the acquisition covered because the plan is to purchase an cat acquisition center and cut out the the company that they send their crushed cats to for recovery.
 
By intellectual property, I mean you are paying someone to use their patented method, or help you come up with a method that suits your specific needs.

As for the rest, good luck....you need it.
 
I don't mean that to be rude. My statement, "good luck you will need it" represents the reality of the situation.

I would not be purchasing an acquisition center without pretty intimate knowledge of the field. Make sure you have a very good lawyer who specializes in acquisition.

If it was as simple as processing them in aqua regia, there would be no reason to send them to a processor.
 
Just to fully cover why we all think that you are wrong in what you are looking to do, we had a member some years ago who was a very large cat buyer and trader, he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to do exactly what you are proposing plus similar amounts getting assays for all the cats he encountered and even he came to the conclusion that he was losing money when wet refining himself against what he could get from the large cat refiners for the same materials, he was moving thousands of cats a month so he would know.
The dangers from PGM salts are fully covered if you research platinosis, there are very few old PGM refiners for that very reason, again we had a member who was a partner and founder of a very large refiner in Europe who despite his vast knowledge succumbed to it and died a long painful death, he is missed for his advice,help and his technical abilities in the recovery and refining business.
 
MIS (short for MyInnerScientist)

If you are planning on doing this as large &/or make money idea - FORGET IT :!: :!: :!:

If you are planning to do this on a SMALL (like one time) deal to learn about PGM refining - then (& ONLY then) should you consider this (say two or three CATS) & even at that there are better sources of material to learn from for refining PGMs

Back in 2013 I gave trying to do wet chemical processing "large" volume CATs & I can tell you for an ABSOLUTE fact that it will cost you FAR more money to do it then you will EVER recover in the PGMs you get from doing this process :!: :!: :!:

Its just NOT going to happen :!:

For one thing - the HUGE amount of VERY toxic waste you are going to create is going to cost you every penny of the value in PGMs you get - PLUS - 2X that to process the waste - & then dispose of the waste

That is a cost on top of - & AFTER the cost of dumping a whole LOT of money into the equipment you will need to FIRST set up to even try to wet chem process CATs

Grind cat into fine powder,

IF (BIG IF) you do decide to do this on a SMALL level (2 or 3 CATs) for the "sole" purpose of learning something about refining PGMs --- grinding the CATS to a fine powder is/would be your first BIG mistake!!!

Here is a thread I posted in 2014 about my experience with trying to recover PGMs in 2013

:arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=20573#p210836

Bottom line --- Just Don't Do It :!: :!: :!:

Kurt
 
One more note here --- you will NEVER get all of the PGMs out of CATs with the "wet chem" processing of CATs

At least not without industrial "secrets" - which industry is NOT going to share with you

Kurt
 
kurtak said:
One more note here --- you will NEVER get all of the PGMs out of CATs with the "wet chem" processing of CATs

At least not without industrial "secrets" - which industry is NOT going to share with you

Kurt

DING DING DING...so no matter what you get out, you'll still have recoverable metal in the tailings, which means you'll be paying someone else to process it.

The only way processing it yourself helps is to keep cash flow moving.
 
I actually do not want to discourage this person, as we do not know enough about what they're trying to do or their resources. It can be done aqueously, it just requires a good team and good flow sheet, and commitment from the investor. I know of companies doing it aqueously at large scale with top notch technology. No offense to you Kurt, but you did not have the resources, knowledge, or near enough supply to make a run at doing this as a full fledged venture.

One can process catalytic converters aqueously and make (lots of) money but it does need large scale processing and it requires substantial capital investment. So when MyInnerScientist says money is not a problem, I presume he means >30 million dollars is not a problem.

The biggest issue is not the waste, it is the scale of operations and disposal of high purity precious metals back to the markets, or preferably, closed recycle loops to the autocatalyst manufacturers, most of whom have purchasing specifications from the auto manufacturers (i.e. GM will only buy from a certain well known precious metal refiner). Margins are relatively miniscule (<10%) at industrial scale but combining grass roots level acquisition or even regional area collector level acquisition with that of national scale processing facilities might be more profitable.

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to work with some of the largest producers of automotive catalysts in the world and, on the other side of the coin, the largest recyclers of automotive catalysts in the world. I can tell you generally that at the facilities I've been to, there is still a lot of old science. I have had my eyes opened to the possibility of processing auto catalyst via hydrometallurgical technologies, which, as recently as 2014, I thought to be a waste of time. There are technologies that can be applied to allow processing that is efficient.

No method gets you 100% of the contained value. That is true for virtually any physical situation, be it karat refining, catalytic converter recycling, or ore processing/smelting. Every physical process has a fundamental yield per unit operation. Hydrometallurgy can compare just as well as the pyrometallurgical methods, if not better. In this case, high 90s on Pt, Pd should be a goal and low 90s on Rh.

I will agree with the waste disposal concerns versus pyrometallurgical processing (which produces solid waste streams upstream of the refinery, which has large volumes of ferric chloride that need made into filter cake...)but each have their demerits. I can tell you that it does not cost you even a fraction of cost of recovered metals to treat and dispose of the waste solution produced, if the process is conducted correctly.

Everyone is telling this person not to do it. I say do it if you are willing to do it RIGHT.
 
Lou said:
Everyone is telling this person not to do it. I say do it if you are willing to do it RIGHT.

Not true at all!

My second post told them who they needed to contact, I just hoped they'd figure out who you were on their own!
 
Lou said:
No offense to you Kurt, but you did not have the resources, knowledge, or near enough supply to make a run at doing this as a full fledged venture.

No offence what so ever taken Lou --- & I will agree that on the front concerning knowledge I was/am somewhat lacking - though not entirely lacking (limited to the many, many discussions on this forum) however Lou I am not so sure you can actually say that I was lacking in resources &/or supply

If by resources you mean money - then the people (VERY good friends of mine) had several million they were willing to invest had we been able to show a "potential" for profit --- keep in mind that in the thread I provided the link to was more of a large(r) scale experiment to see if it was actually worthy going forward to investing in a "full fledged venture" --- in other words - had I been able to recover enough PGMs to show a potential profit (knowledge) the money was there to take it to the next level

Concerning supply - My friends were handling about a half of a semi load of CATs per month - that in its self is not enough to go "full fledged venture" --- however - we had several other CAT buyers interested that could have also provided CATs from a half of a semi to a full semi per month & "in fact" had one supplier that was sitting on 5 semi trailers of CATs --- the CATs were available - so again what was lacking was the ability (knowledge) to recover enough PGMs to show potential profit worthy of greater investment

Everyone is telling this person not to do it.

Generally speaking that is true & that is because (to the best of my knowledge) no one here on the "open forum" is going to be able to help him in any way to point him in the direction to get to a profitable end

on the other hand as snoman said (as a reference to you)

Not true at all!

My second post told them who they needed to contact, I just hoped they'd figure out who you were on their own!

And as I said in my second post

At least not without industrial "secrets" - which industry is NOT going to share with you

So back to your opening statement

I actually do not want to discourage this person,

If MyInnerScientist actually has the "millions" you suggest are needed to make it happen then you would certainly be the man to consult with

My only question at that point (being as you "do not want to discourage this person") is - are we going to get to open this discussion on the open forum :mrgreen:

Just kidding with that last statement Lou :lol:

As much as I would enjoy your "free" consultation - I somehow don't see that happening :cry:

Kurt
 
Appreciate your response Kurt. And I didn't know if Snowman meant me or not. I’ve been in over my head before too! Everyone starts learning this at the same place. By resources I meant a chemical engineer, environmental permitting, analytical instrumentation (namely ICP and WDXRF), advanced ion exchangers; filter press for waste water, etc. By knowledge, I meant experience with using aforementioned. If you had all that I stand corrected.

To do converters requires quantity. As in, a tractor trailer load/day. Every day. And we aren't even getting into the details about how they're graded, MFCs, etc. Even a few millions isn't enough. A few tens of millions is required if you're going to do it plant size and compete. Hell, just getting the leach system installed is a multimillion dollar endeavor. Not exactly cheap to have people come plumb your series of 1 ton steel liquid chlorine cylinders to your titanium autoclave, now is it?

I will agree are more secrets on the hydromet side than there are on the pyromet side where it centers around iron or copper collection often with a double trip to the furnace to get the bulk of it. Most of the hydromet comes down to good capture/collection methodologies, reuse of acids, proper pretreatment, and solid/liquid separation (that is to say, getting it to filter). Much of the acid can be used over and over and over if it can be filtered cleanly. Furthermore, as all of the PGM complexes are anionic, they can be dialyzed to higher concentrations before subsequent liquid-liquid or solid-state extraction.
 
and Kurt, as far as free consultations go, some people do get them. There's a well known member here doing a series of videos who has called and gotten the skinny on Pd and Pt refining...
 
Every time someone has told me something is impossible, I have found out someone else that has been doing it for years, and can do it really, really well. Chapeau Lou.
 
MyInnerScientist said:
Money is not a problem, all I need to know is the best way of going about this. Any suggestion will help.
Money is ALWAYS, not only a problem, but THE PROBLEM.
 
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