# bought today my first cat



## samuel-a (Jan 14, 2010)

bought today my first cat to try and processing for the first time.

here it is, the honeycomb and in the small pic is the whole cat.




i belive that i allready started at the wrong foot... the price... 35$
the dealer said it's from a dizel engine car which "usually cost less".... probably riped me off uh...

i would love to hear opinions from some experienced folks out there?


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## EDI Refining (Jan 14, 2010)

I think there is only Pd is diesel converters, if any PMs


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## markqf1 (Jan 14, 2010)

My information suggests different.
This is because EGT's (exhaust gas tempatures) are much lower on diesel engines than gasoline engines.
There has been some attempts to move the converter closer to the exhaust manifold to increase tempatures and therefore allow the useage of pd.

I dont think you'll find many diesel engine converters using alot of pd.

On the positive side, they have more pt in them (ppm) than their gasoline counterparts.

Mark


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## lazersteve (Jan 14, 2010)

Mark,

I processed three of the sooty diesel cats and got lots of Pd. The ones I did were cylinder shaped with an almost bone colored substrate.

The soot off of them was terrible. It's so thick it forms a sludge in the leach.

Steve


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## Buzz (Jan 15, 2010)

I'm having problems with soot too.

Anyone have any ideas on how to reduce the carbon content before processing?

Regards
Buzz


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## samuel-a (Jan 15, 2010)

whay the soot is such a problem?
it does not dossolve in HCL+Cl as far as i understand... so, then the first filtration should take care of it....


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## EDI Refining (Jan 15, 2010)

Assay didn't find Pt,Rh in this particular one.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 15, 2010)

P3M said:


> From past assay, I didn't find Pt or Rh in this particular one



P3M, I noticed in that picture you have that it has the PMG's listed that are contained in that cat. Where did you get that picture at?


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## markqf1 (Jan 15, 2010)

Thanks Steve,
I'll keep that in mind.
From what I've read, diesel converters contain no rh at all and no pd before 1994.
Since then, manufacturers have moved the location of the converter as close to the exaust manifold as possible, in order to get the pd to work, evidently with success.
If I can find the article that I read this information in, I'll post it.
I've never worked any diesel converters that I know of.

Mark


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## samuel-a (Mar 5, 2010)

how is it possible?

i had it over a month soaking in HCL+Cl, the Cl was injected in small increments evry two days stright to the veins.
stannous test shows no PM's at all.

i personally harvested it, so there is no chance it had been processed before.

today i broke a few pieces of this cat and crushed them to 1/2 inch beeds, gave them a 2 hours boil in dilute AR, again, stannous test shows no PM's what so ever...



i guess i was right with my first hunch... i got ripped off...


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## Irons (Mar 5, 2010)

samuel-a said:


> how is it possible?
> 
> i had it over a month soaking in HCL+Cl, the Cl was injected in small increments evry two days stright to the veins.
> stannous test shows no PM's at all.
> ...



It wouldn't surprise me if there are aftermarket converters that have no PMs at all.


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## Oz (Mar 5, 2010)

samuel-a said:


> how is it possible? stannous test shows no PM's at all



High Cl2 and/or free nitric can make a stannic test worthless.


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## samuel-a (Mar 5, 2010)

thank you.

i'm awar of the problems that may occurre to the test by oxidizer.
i made sure the excess Cl was evaporated before testing.

when preforming AR, i have tested when there ware no more NOx fumes.

another indicator was the color of the solution, the HCL+Cl is clear yellow and the AR is clear of any color...


oh well... now i know it's possible.... cat with no PGM's... good idea....


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## Oz (Mar 5, 2010)

Do not throw them out, I would cement on zinc. You may be surprised.


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## samuel-a (Mar 5, 2010)

will do.

thanks


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## samuel-a (Mar 10, 2010)

many thanks Oz

i didn't had any zinc, but i did dropped everything with scrap iron.
dissolved the solids with dilute AR and tested positive for Pt.
no Rh.
dropped the Pt.
no Pd.




just like steve said, dropping with iron is not the best choice for dropping the PM's, but did worked eventually.
doesn't looks like i'll get more then a gram of Pt....


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## lazersteve (Mar 10, 2010)

Sam,

You may get more PGMs if you treat the cat a second or even third time. Use a little heat (about 40-60C) and the HCl-Cl will really dissolve the wash coat.

Steve


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## skippy (May 28, 2010)

Steve,

I am curious about what you say here about the wash coat dissolving - I assume you mean the wash coat ceramic itself dissolves and not just the metals dissolving out of the wash coat. If you indeed can dissolve the wash coat with hcl-cl, is it possible to recover undissolved rhodium at that point as a sediment, assuming you leave the honeycomb whole? Or would it get lost on the cordierite monolith surface?


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## lazersteve (May 28, 2010)

skippy said:


> Steve,
> 
> I am curious about what you say here about the wash coat dissolving - I assume you mean the wash coat ceramic itself dissolves and not just the metals dissolving out of the wash coat. If you indeed can dissolve the wash coat with hcl-cl, is it possible to recover undissolved rhodium at that point as a sediment, assuming you leave the honeycomb whole? Or would it get lost on the cordierite monolith surface?



Skippy,

By wash coat I mean the PGM coating on the honeycomb substrate.

Steve


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## goldenchild (May 28, 2010)

I think I can address two things on this thread. As far as the soot goes check this out.




This is 20lbs of cat converter beads. Talk about filthy! To make matters worse they had motor oil on them. I could tell by the very distinctive smell of motor oil when I cleaned the beads and the oil that I didnt get and was put into the AR solution. Stunk really bad. Anyway a good way to get the soot off is normal tap water and dish washing soap. I used dawn. It got both the soot and motor oil off. You will probably have to do a few repetitions. After giving the beads the AR bath there wasnt that much soot to filter.

As for the diesel combs/beads not having pt. The guy I got these from said these beads were from old big GMC trucks. I processed 2 pounds so far and this is what I got.




There is an extremely strong positive reaction for pt. This is from the bag on the bottom right in the first pic. And this is before even running them through full strength AR.

And for my last pic... it is from 100 grams of the beads I tested (you should do this with everything) before jumping feet first into this. It is one gram of powder I dropped out with zinc. Im expecting to get 1.3 troy ounces low to 2 troy ounces high of pt from these beads.


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## Barren Realms 007 (May 28, 2010)

Very nice looking.


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