# Palladium/Silver 24 ounces-- to refine or not



## kilo17 (Apr 1, 2013)

So I have 32 ounces (with 40 more on the way) of palladium/silver rods that is 75% palladium and 25% silver. My dilemma is I can sell it refined for about 10% more than as is. I have been learning on MLCC's and Cats but I am not sure I want to risk that kind of money on learning. I would like to hear some feedback or suggestions. Thanks... keith


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## lazersteve (Apr 1, 2013)

You may be better served selling it as is. 

Steve


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## Dan Dement (Apr 1, 2013)

Kilo,

I manufacture Palladium jewelry and I do not know of anyone that uses 75% Pd and 25% AG for anything. It is interesting combination and I do not know of anyone who would purchase the metal as use it as is. My recommendation would be to refine it and sell it or just sell it. Most refiners will pay you a check for 90% of the Palladium but few actually refine the PGM's. So, at today's price of $779 Pd & $28.19 AG, you would recieve 32 oz x 75% x $779 x.9 = $16,826.40. If you push, you might be able to recover the silver at 32 oz x .25% x $28.19 x .95% $214.24 for a total of $17,040.64 for everything. I deal with Pd all the time and what I would recommend to just cash out and don't go thru all the Refining process. Understand, that Palladium is going to come back to you usually as a Powder. Melting the powder into metal can be very challenging as exposure to Oxygen & Hydrogen makes it brittle and unusable for jewelry. Powder will also not directly melt in an Induction Melter as the powder is too fine and will not hold the energy. Keep in mind, all of this needs to be done under vacuum or an Argon atmosphere. 

If you want to refine it, contact Lou who is an administrator on this forum and he will do it for you.

Good Luck,

Dan


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## Captobvious (Apr 1, 2013)

lazersteve said:


> You may be better served selling it as is.
> 
> Steve



Steve is wise, I would do the same, but with one caveat in that I would hold back an oz or two to use to learn PGM refining with personally (in that I have zero experience in PGM refinement myself either but want to learn as well)


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## kilo17 (Apr 1, 2013)

Thanks, it seems to be the consensus that I should sell it. This Pd/Ag combo comes as rods used in Hydrogen Storage tanks. I have a steady supply and wanted the great feedback I am receiving. If I can make a few bucks as the middle man then it sounds like that's the way to go. Thanks everyone. Keith


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## Lou (Apr 1, 2013)

Looks more like a braze.

If you do want to sell it, shoot me a message.


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## kilo17 (Apr 1, 2013)

Lou said:


> Looks more like a braze.
> 
> If you do want to sell it, shoot me a message.



Message sent Lou. Thanx... Keith


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## kilo17 (Apr 1, 2013)

Here are some of the parts that it comes from, which still have some Pd on them.


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## Dan Dement (Apr 1, 2013)

Send it to Lou! It's his speciality.

Dan


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## nickvc (Apr 2, 2013)

I'm with Dan on this Lou is definitely the man for this material. 
If you want to play with some I'd pick the contaminated parts with base metals and dissolve in nitric, reduce the silver to chlorides by adding hydrochloric or salt, filter and rinse well until no more colour shows and then cement the palladium with copper to recover it. You can then refine the Pd but I'd just stockpile it until you have decent volume and sell as is to Lou, as every one says this is definitely his speciality. If you don't want to touch any of this then send it all to Lou, I'm sure he will treat you fairly.


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## Platdigger (Apr 2, 2013)

The problem I have read, with converting silver to its chloride in the presence of pd in solute, is that of the chloride dragging down with it and trapping some of the pd.


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## nickvc (Apr 3, 2013)

Platdigger said:


> The problem I have read, with converting silver to its chloride in the presence of pd in solute, is that of the chloride dragging down with it and trapping some of the pd.




Thus is true hence the advice to rinse thoroughly several times, this will not remove all of the palladium but if your going to convert the silver chloride and then put the recovered silver through a cell you will recover the palladium at a later date, anyone encountering PGMs in their processing along with silver really should be using a cell even if they don't want to refine PGMs they will be able to concentrate and collect them.


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## Lou (Apr 3, 2013)

You can get the bulk of the Pd off the silver chloride. It's pretty evident when it is free of Pd--the filtrate is colorless. You can see Pd to great dilution because it's so strongly colored (to <50 ppm). I catch the rest on resin and elute it off with ammonia and add that to the Pd liquors, then concentrate and it's off to the races as per usual.


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