Verifying Catalytic Converter Recycling Process

[MyInnerScientist]

Money is not a problem, sourcing cats is not a problem, engineering a large scale refinery will not be a problem. This is all far down the road and I will cross that bridge when I get there. What I want to know is if any of you have any better chemical processes that say might reduce waste or if reflux distilling is the right way to go or if it's only good for certain steps, or if their are any decent ways of neutralizing the chemicals (even if it costs more money). All I need now is help with the chemistry aspect.

I do though appreciate all the feed back I will keep this in mind as I take the next steps

 

[snoman701]

I think that question was answered quite well by Lou.

This is what he does, provide engineering and analytical support in the development of turnkey refining systems.

You need to contact him.

 

[cuchugold]

All I need now is help with the chemistry aspect.

I do not wish to demean or insult or anything, but here goes a simple question: Do you truly believe that using some late 19th century technology, that was developed before cars existed, that everyone is aware of, that is printed in books, etc, and that is probably a high school course these days, you are going to make money?. Of course there are bigger, better, faster, nicer, safer, methods available.

An expert in the field just gave you several answers on what is required and how it goes.

Now for the money question: You are planning to make money with this, right?. So, really if money is not an issue, give the expert a call, set up an appointment, pay his fees, maybe he'll show you one of the plants, and will probably cost you a lot less than if you are going to learn this stuff from scratch.

One more thing: You can know all the chemistry in the world about this, and you'll probably fail, because you are against more resourceful people. Maybe you can cook a better pizza, but Domino's is going to make money, and you'll end up in the 95% of pizza parlors that fail.

I probably just wasted a lot of my breath for nothing, but there you are, I'm a giver. Also a taker, so don't get any ideas.

 

[snoman701]

Money is not a problem, sourcing cats is not a problem, engineering a large scale refinery will not be a problem. This is all far down the road and I will cross that bridge when I get there. What I want to know is if any of you have any better chemical processes that say might reduce waste or if reflux distilling is the right way to go or if it's only good for certain steps, or if their are any decent ways of neutralizing the chemicals (even if it costs more money). All I need now is help with the chemistry aspect.

I do though appreciate all the feed back I will keep this in mind as I take the next steps

There are a lot of posts regarding the chemistry already in this section of the forum. I absolutely recommend familiarizing yourself with the technology available to the general public before you consider spending money on a turnkey system.

Here are some keys.

Rhodium is fifficult to get in to solution.

Palladium oxide is acid resistant, thus any pdo in the ceramic matrix will be unrecoverable by standard methods.

Even if you recover rhodium and palladium, selling them at a high percentage of value can be difficult.

As you know, the yield per pound is not exceptional, so waste management is very important.

Now for clues....click on Lou's name and read everything he has written in the pgm forum. Then when you talk to him you'll have a better understanding of what he can offer outside of that which is publicly available.

He's able to help with every aspect of recovery and disposal, and in my opinion....at a very competitive rate.




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[aga]

Lou is certainly your best bet.

If you want to chance it, there are papers saying everything is possible:
View attachment mahmoud2003.pdf
That paper says sulphuric acid and table salt, claiming 85%+ under certain conditions.

I thought that mix just made HCl.

 

[nickvc]

I will make one final comment on this.
If wet chemistry was the best way to recover the PGMs then why do all the clever big players use arc furnaces to recover the values, they have invested 100s of millions of dollars and the things run 24/7 and need huge amounts to feed them, it’s economy of scale, the other point is finding a decent market for the metals refined and that will be very hard without very large volumes of high purity metals, the big players already have that organized and will dump on any new player that tries to enter the market.

 

[MyInnerScientist]

Ok all, I apologize to Lou because I will admit I skipped over a bit of the back and forth of whether I should do this or not, but I have read it all and it was very helpful.

Ill do as suggested and look through lous posts. And continue my research.

Thank you all!