# Catalytic Converters



## aflacglobal (Jul 11, 2007)

This is a request from a possible customer of mine. The guys talking greek to me when it come to this. I am going to PM platinummills and ask for his soultion. That's a lot of material there. :shock: :shock: :shock: 
wonder where it all goes. :lol: 

Any idea's on the most productive and safe way for this to happen. I hate to kick him to the curb. He was reffered to me by a previous customer. You know how that buddy buddy system works.

Hi Mr Mattes

Thank you for your response, actually our company collect 10 tn of Auto Catalityc converter and smelt for recovery the PGM in Iron Matte Using a Electric Arc Furnace. This matte is refine in Jhonson Mattey ( Bet he's getting gouged ). We want to refine the PGM here in our plant in Bogota Colombia. 

I know that we can disolve the PGM in Agua Regia directly from the Catalyst material but we need process 500 kg per days and are so dificult the disolution dimension and the filtration of this solid. We make somo proof of this method and need 12 hr almost for disolve the 90% of PGM present in the material and we need almost 98% of the recovery. And the other problem is the filtration size becuse we have 500kg of solid with 0.015% of PGM. If you have some solution for a directly digestion with high recovery results and fast filtration plese let me know. (Is so important the Rhodium recovery becouse is the 35% of the value of our material).

Any help ????


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## jimdoc (Jul 11, 2007)

Ralph,
Platinumills and Action Minings setups do about 100 lbs
per day. They use CLS from Action Mining that is added
to 50% Muriatic, 50% water and a small amount of sulfuric.
I takes 8 hours to get the metal into solution, and takes
about 3 times longer than that to precipitate the metals
out of solution onto the carbon plates that are in polypropylene
filters. I guess they could setup a few machines and run them
for greater output. I am not sure about the rhodium recovery,
you could check with Mike Glenn at Action Mining or Platinumills.

It sounds like they are already doing better than leaching, but
it depends on the size of the arc furnace. It is supposed to use 
very large amounts of electricity to run a system that melts all
the material, besides the millions for the equipment. CLS leaching
is probably the cheapest way to do it, unless they have millions
to invest into equipment.
I plan on building my own system IV or Platinumills machine so
I am very curious about anything to do with processing catayltic
converters.
Jim


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## aflacglobal (Jul 11, 2007)

Thanks jim,
I think platinum mills uses this >>> The Platinumill is an electrolytic, ion exchange, chemical leaching process. The solution used in the process disolves the Platinum, Palladium, and Rhodium ions. The PGM ions are then precipitated out of solution in an electrolytic cell. The solution continues cycling through the system disolving more PGM ions and then precipitating them out in the extraction chamber. 

http://platinumills.com/10601.html

I figure just double that, or buy several. I always sell several smaller units to my customers. That way if one breaks down you are not totally shut down. Backup so to say.

Ralph


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## jimdoc (Jul 11, 2007)

Ralph,
Checkout Action Mining also, they have other size machines
that are basically 15-55 gallon barrels that are used for the 
leaching also. It would be easy enough to make something
to process the material in. They sell a dvd for $129 that explains
the whole process. Also they should roast the material to burn off
the carbon because that will help get better recovery rate and
avoid problems from the carbon.
I saw a parts washing barrel on Ebay from a car washing place
that would have made a great setup, but shipping something like
that would have been too much for me. Basically you just need the
CLS or the formula to make your own (I think they will sell you the
formula) or figure it out on your own. The leaching columns or tanks,
power supply,carbon plates, 4 micron polypropylene filters, magnetic
drive acid resistant pump, and some fittings,hoses, and your in business.
And fume hood or outdoors. Jim


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## aflacglobal (Jul 11, 2007)

If he can't help or does have the answer i will check with them. Thank Jim. You seem to have it down pat.

Ralph


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## jimdoc (Jul 11, 2007)

I think Platinumills is backordered, I can't see him keeping up with
demand, I may be wrong. Action Mining on the other hand has been
doing it for years, and I think they were the ones that invented the CLS.
You should at least get the dvd from action mining if Platinumills doesn't
have his dvd ready yet. It is well worth the money. And if you check out the dvd, it really isn't much to make the setup yourself. Why pay to have PVC pipe shipped to you, when you can get that and everything else you need local? You just need to get the CLS shipped to you.
Action Mining's dvd also talks about how people have columns as tall as their buildings to leach in, and that you can get glass columns custom made so you could see everything. I figured you, out of all the people on the forum, could turn out some awesome high tech catyltic converter machine with your experience. I am just not in a financial situation to buy all the stuff to even finish making my own, I have been collecting it all piece by piece.
Jim


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 11, 2007)

Ralph,

It's confusing, but the first paragraph sounds like they're going to stick with the plasma arc smelting but are looking for a way to refine the resulting metals. As I understand it, the 10,000 deg plasma arc furnace melts everything. The melt is cooled very slowly and the metals settle to the bottom. The metals, as a group, are separated from the slag, sampled and assayed, and then shipped to JM. They're probably taking a beating and want to do the refining themselves. IMHO, the plasma arc method is far better and more efficient than any chemical method. I've always had doubts as to whether a chemical method will get all the rhodium.

jimdoc,

I just read that CLS-20 is iron thiosulfafe. Do you know what CLS-21,22,23,24,25, and 26 are? I would guess they are also thiosulfates or thiourea.


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## jimdoc (Jul 11, 2007)

I am not sure, they are just different formulas for different types of ores.
The 26P CLS is special for platinum or catalytic converters. The others are mainly for use on gold ores. They are probably all thiosulfates or thiourea
in different combinations or variations. I haven't figured that out, it would be cool to be able to make my own, but I am sure they are (proprietorial?)about that.
Mike Glenn says in the dvd that the big guys melt it all, and the equipment costs millions. He said that by now all that equipment is surely paid for itself and now they can do it for pennies, besides their electric bill.
You are correct that the honeycomb becomes the flux or slag and is seperated from the pgm's at that temperature. The problem is that temperature is way up there.
Jim


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## jimdoc (Jul 11, 2007)

My CLS manual says that you can use sodium bisulfate to regenerate the CLS to reuse it.
It also says that the so called nitrate leaches are a combination of urea and thiourea. 3 parts urea to 1 part thiourea is a good combination but you can try other mixtures. It says the urea has the ability to keep the thiourea from being destroyed by the ore in many cases.
It also says that you can add additives of 1/10 to 1/2 of ferric sulfate and sodium bisulfate.
This is all from Action Minings book;CLS Manual Non-Cyanide Leaching.


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## aflacglobal (Jul 12, 2007)

Well i'm learning alot about the converter market now. Here is how the big boys do it. It gives use some good number though, Take a look.

I think the problem is the high iron to precious metal content. Sort of like having your gold locked up. If they took the remainder of the material Say 20 kg and throwed it into sulfuric acid , would this not elimate most of the iron base. Then take the remainder and run it thru AR. Would that not work. I'm learning here to. 

No, we plain smelt 500 kg of Honey comb Ceramic (Catalytic converter scrap) daily and produce 20 kg of iron matte with the PGM content 3-4%. We have a Lab Assay and XRF NIton Analizer with special calibration for Precious Metals and Iron Matte with precious metals. 

We have a Pilot Lab with 3 reactor of 5lts each one. 4 Elermeyer 250mm and 2 vacumm pump.

We want disolve 20 k of iron and the recovery average is 

400gr Pt
300gr Pl
100 gr Rh

We know the agua regia process but have some problem in the speed disolution , the recovery of the Palladium and rhodium., the control of the process and the filtration time. 

Maybe your automatic plant with your assistance can help us.

Juan


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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:22:55 -0700
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: ( REFINING EQUIPMENT ) 
To: juame


I'm slow it take me a minute sometimes. You want to recover the pgm from the 500 kg of iron at a content of 3-4 % pmg after the processing. Do you have a lab analysis of some of the metal after it come out the furnace. This will tell me chemically what we are dealing with. Can i do it ? Yes. Just a mater of chemistry and process.

Multimetco in Alabama >>>>> I know of them. I was in the scrap business for a few years.

See if you can send me a lab sheet.

Thanks,

Ralph

Juan Pablo Mendez Arevalo <juamendos> wrote:
Do you undestand me. Companys like Multimetco in ALabama and Techemet in Houston Buy Catalytic converter in all USA and Latin America, they only smelt the material in a electric arc furnace using iron like collector and produce a iron matte with around 3-4% of PGM. Them contract with J Mattey the refine service.

I want do all the process and produce pure metals for long time . Our collect equipment buy in several countrys in South America around 10 tn per month of Honey Comb (Catalytic converter scrap). 

Please try to inform me what you can help us in this project?

Regards,

Juan 





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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:00:02 -0700
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: GOLD DUST AND DORE ( REFINING EQUIPMENT ) catalytic converters too. lol
To: juamendos

Hey, cool website by the way. I can see where the big boys over at J mattey have got their hands in you pocket. The truth is that with prices the way they are it really just pays to do the final refining your self and skip their crap. Why should you do all the work and they get all the profit. That use to really make me mad. I was in the scrap business for about 15 years, I know how it is. I'll show you how to get it all up to speed.

Thanks,

Ralph Mathes


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## jimdoc (Jul 12, 2007)

Leaching will get the metals off the honeycomb and beads,
and leave them with the resulting metals. That will be the
platinum,palladium,rhodium, and iron, and some other
possibilities that may have contaminated the material from
the cars exhaust.But you will have a few ounces of that instead
of tons of monolith and beads. You must refine it further.
I have been told the process is about six months to do that
properly. I don't know if that is what the big boys tell you
so you don't try it yourself, or they just want to hold your
money for six months to keep the interest like lawyers do.
I don't know anything about the iron matte stuff they are 
talking about, that is confusing.
Jim


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## aflacglobal (Jul 12, 2007)

I think in a production enviroment they can run more material this way and more cost effective. Sort of like with gold. They smelt the black sands or ore. This releases the metals. The metals they all form in a concentrated cone in the bottom of the pour, base metals and all ( because of their weights. Then from the cone it is easier to refine the raw materials.

Based sort of on this prinicple.

Fire Assay

In this type of assay ore is ground and a weighed amount, usually 30 or 40 grams is mixed with an assay flux. We will go into fluxes later. The ore and flux is placed in a clay crucible and heated at about 1100 C or 1850 F for about an hour or until it is a thick, homogenous liquid. This melt is then poured into a cone shaped mold. This cone will consist of a bottom piece of lead with all the values dissolved as an amalgam. This cone of lead is called a "prill". The top or wide end of the cone will consist of a lump of glass containing all sorts of impurities. 

Ralph


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## aflacglobal (Jul 12, 2007)

O.K 

I got some raw number together and this is what i cam up with. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: 


:?: :?: :?: :?: 

Ralph


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## jimdoc (Jul 12, 2007)

Ralph,
Here is an older article about average prices for 
converter material. The metal values need to be
updated in the figuring the values for today. But
it states that there are three different grades of
converter material. It is very hard to determine 
value without an assay, and there are so many
differences in makers,years, etc.... that can and
do change all the time due to the different metal
prices or stricter EPA limits, Etc......
The article also mentions the hydrometallurgical 
process where cyanide is used in an autoclave at 
high temperatures and pressures.
Jim
http://www.hpcnet.org/sdsmt/SiteID=199458


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 14, 2007)

I think you have to go a little deeper, Ralph. Just remember that the refiner is the Last Liar. Only the guy who can plop the pure metal on the scale really knows. Everything before is BS.


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## aflacglobal (Jul 14, 2007)

Just remember that the refiner is the Last Liar

One of many. How true. 

I think they just don't know their chemistry. The only real problem i can see would be the RH. Could you not dissolve it in hot concentrated sulfuric and then plate it out. I don't think AR will do it, will it ? 

Ralph


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 14, 2007)

I don't think that plating it out will work, especially with platinum group metals. Plating a sound deposit is much more difficult than meets the eye. The chemistry for dissolving is much, much different than the chemistry for plating, in 99% of the cases.


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## aflacglobal (Jul 14, 2007)

The chemistry for dissolving is much, much different than the chemistry for plating, in 99% of the cases.

Yeah i can of gathered that. I went to reading. Knowledge is power. :wink: 

It's Greek to me, but i get the general understanding. It should be right up your block though.

Ralph :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 15, 2007)

A very common statement, when discussing the recovery of metals from solutions, is to simply "plate it out." I have seen or heard this phrase used endless times on the internet and probably a dozen times on this forum. In theory, this is sort of possible. In practice, it is nearly impossible.

In most any metal solution, something will plate out onto the cathode. The trick, however, is to get a "sound" deposit on the cathode. By "sound", I mean a deposit that will stick (adhere) to the cathode and also produce the deposit in a solid, non-spongy form. In order to do this, the solution can only contain the metal in question, copper, for example. If any other metals are in the solution, the deposit will usually be "unsound." Also, if there are contaminants in the solution, such as organics or unnecessary chemicals, the deposit will be unsound.

The formulas for plating solutions are very precise and sensitive. As an example, here's a standard formula for plating copper from a sulfate solution that I took from the Metal Finishing Guidebook. The formula for electrowinning copper is very similar.

Copper sulfate - 26-33 oz/gal
Sulfuric acid - 4-10 oz/gal
Chloride - 50-120 ppm

If the chemicals are out of the above ranges, the deposit will be unsound. If there are iron, nickel, or most other metals involved, the deposit, most probably, won't stick to the cathode. It will also produce a spongy deposit (looks like turds) that will float and produce a short between the anode and cathode. Also, the other metals will co-deposit and you'll end up where you started. This deposit will nearly be impossible to collect and recover. The copper system is more simple that most. The other metal systems are more complex and, in most cases, even more sensitive to contamination. The least sensitive systems are those that use a cyanide matrix.

When dissolving metals electrolytically, several systems solve this problem by using membranes or porous cups, as barriers, to prevent the dissolved metals from coming into contact with the cathode. The dissolved metals are kept confined in an anode chamber. The Shor Simplicity system is an example of this.

When someone says, "just plate it out", I put it in the same category as when someone talking about refining gold says, "just melt it down."

In the past 150 years, or so, electrowinning systems have been developed for refining metals that came from ore. The systems (formulas) took many years to develop and many are covered in patents. The constituents in ore, however, generally run the same ever time and, if you fiddle with them long enough, you can come up with a system. In our case, the constituents are different every time we do it. 

This is a complex subject that I have barely touched upon.


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## jimdoc (Jul 15, 2007)

GSP,
The action mining system IV machine uses 3 micron polypropylene filter bags that keep the metals inside to keep them seperate once they so
call "plate out", when they drop and stay in the filter bag that would be
like the barrier in the other systems?
I know when I tried doing gold in the "gold retriever" bucket only the copper stuck to the plate and the gold just seemed to float or sink. 
Sadly that was when I didn't have a clue, so I probably had gold in solution when I disposed of it. The amperage supposedly had to be right to get the gold to plate. I thought it didn't even dissolve because of the floating flakes.
Jim


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## aflacglobal (Jul 15, 2007)

Yeah, i have been reading on the subject of plating here recently. It has many many more parameters to deal with than just refining with chemicals does. In plating you are using a pure, known alloy to plate it onto the target subject. The p.h. as well as the current and the surface area to be plated all have to be taken into account. Even the cycle times have an effect. Your right trying to pull it out of an unknow bath of many different type of metals is dam near impossible.
You need to do a topic on the electro-plating aspects of refing chris. I don't know of many of the other members actually even us in in their processes. Except that shore thingy ma jiggy. I don't think much of them shore popcorn popper things at $ 500. dam bucks. But the chemistry is there. Just need to stop ass ripping people for it. Whats it cost ,maybe $ 20.00. Hell at least give them the charger for that. 

Anyway i find the subject interesting. I figure some of the other members do to. Thanks Chris.

Ralph


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## aflacglobal (Jul 20, 2007)

O.K. i have readded the attachments in this thread. Only after being told i did not have proper access. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: 

I hate moving. :? I still can't upload my avatar.


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## lazersteve (Jul 20, 2007)

Yuo can post your Avatar from any location, you don't have to upload it.

That's why mine worked even after the move... it's stored on my website, not on the old forum site. :wink: 

Steve


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