# cat's project update



## pgm (Jul 9, 2011)

Hi

I was last on the forum a months ago. I started to process the cat's i had and we had all sorts of problems. Not to worry i think most of the problems have been sorted now. The biggest problem with volume is volume, well this is what happened.

I processed 100 cat's 

Crushed the cat's using a ball mill mesh 5 particle size.
did the AR process and used the zinc. 

Now what i can say is not much pgm was found, nothing like what we where expecting.

We did the numbers and got a bit worried we would only break even. So we reprocessed the 100 cat's again (same lot) guess what? more pgm 2nd time round. 3rd time more again now we have done this 6th time and still we are getting a good strong leach. To begin with the leaches where not so strong but now the leaches are much more stronger. each time the cat dust is put back into the leaching process with new acid and processed again. I have quite a bit of pgm now stacked up now. 

I am going to send this lot to assay and will have an update soon.

Currently as it stands there is a time factor and the acid costs to add into it. We soon be able to find out if it has been worth processing. 

Will update soon.


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## skippy (Jul 10, 2011)

That's tough going, six leaches! Did you rinse in between leaches? What kind of leach were you using?
When my leaches are aggresive, I seldom find a third leach worth the bother. Rinsing is good, you might just be washing out already dissolved values with your follow up leaches.

Just a note from experience, HCl-H2O2 seems to lose a lot of effectiveness on platinum if the acid isn't highly concentrated. 

I'm really interested to hear how you do on your batch, PGM.


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## pgm (Jul 11, 2011)

skippy said:


> That's tough going, six leaches! Did you rinse in between leaches? What kind of leach were you using?
> When my leaches are aggresive, I seldom find a third leach worth the bother. Rinsing is good, you might just be washing out already dissolved values with your follow up leaches.
> 
> Just a note from experience, HCl-H2O2 seems to lose a lot of effectiveness on platinum if the acid isn't highly concentrated.
> ...



Yes i did the rinse. i used HCL + HNO3 and 5 days leachings, 80'C. The follow up leaches where showing values.

The most imortant part is mixing while leaching the more you mix the better the leach but this part can get very hard depending on what weight you are mixing, i found mixing 10kg not so easy. You need to get the acid into the cat dust, to get to the PM's, the system works but takes up alot of time.

will update soon.


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 11, 2011)

pgm,

Glad to see your persistance over PGM recovery and refining. I am sending a cat to a German assaying company to find out the PGM content first to see if it is worth it or not.

For agitation I have used the following propeler and shaft connected to this motor which is protected with PVC pannel, it went through a few leaches and no problem, here are the pictures it works great for agitation.

well it won't allow me to upload here so if u can send me an email I will reply with pics of my home made agitator. [email protected]

Regards,
Kev


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## pgm (Jul 11, 2011)

kjavanb123 said:


> pgm,
> 
> Glad to see your persistance over PGM recovery and refining. I am sending a cat to a German assaying company to find out the PGM content first to see if it is worth it or not.
> 
> ...



Thanks kjavanb123 for offer on the pics. you can message me the pic's it should let you.


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## samuel-a (Jul 11, 2011)

In my opinion, you will need some sort of mini press filter rig to squizz the all of the juice out of this powder and have dry cake to leach again. This will probably reduce the amount of leaches to 2-3, but only trying that will supply a definite answer.

Another alternative is to mix the cat's substrate powder with Diatomaceous earth and filter using a thin Diatomaceous filter.
If you let gravity do it's thing, i'll speculate that within 48 hours, the powder will be dry and pregnant solution is collected.


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## Harold_V (Jul 12, 2011)

samuel-a said:


> In my opinion, you will need some sort of mini press filter rig to squizz the all of the juice out of this powder and have dry cake to leach again.


It's called a gasketed filter press, and powered by an air diaphragm pump. The filter press must not be chemically reactive. 

Harold


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## pgm (Apr 11, 2012)

Hi everyone,

Back again

I came to update people on how it all went on.....we stopped doing cat's we just could not get the volume and even we did
we had problems with getting a good buyer. We needed the money to keep the flow going and the buyers wanted to pay after 90days. 

I instead started gold....i do not know why but i can not get enough of gold like gold fewer...i can melt it again and again.....i am currently doing cpu's and any type of scrap gold i can get.....if you look at my other posts you will see...i learn t most of it here with the help of this forum.

I thought i come update and try to help others who are interested - give back what i have experienced


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