# Catalytic Converters: Anyone REALLY making any $$?



## Bootsy (Mar 13, 2011)

Re: The feasibility of someone actually making money processing the media from catalytic converters on a small to medium scale.
I have a few concerns and questions. After spending a bit of time wading through the mountain of misinformation written on this subject, I'm hoping to finally get some straight answers here. I'll bet there are a lot of other readers who would also like to know how the experts on this site weigh in on this.

I have seen many conflicting views posted, even on this site, and a lot is written about it - but I suspect, largely by those who really don't have any first hand knowledge in refining and may be just repeating and embellishing things they've heard. 

Much is written on this subject - (found for sale all over the internet, including eBay: books, booklets, videos, DVDs, etc.,) ...like: "_Get Rich Overnight Refining Catalytic Converters in Your Backyard!" "Everything you need to know to get rich reclaiming PGMs from old cats." _ ....... Obviously, if it was really that easy every out of work mechanic would be doing this. So we all agree it's not something just anyone can do, but is it something that can be done?

1) Are there really any individuals and/or small refiners across the country successfully processing converters from "fresh off the car" to "pure precious metals ready to sell"? I've seen it written by someone who ought to know:_ "I doubt if there's one single person out there working out of a small shop who is really recovering more than half of the PMGs that refineries that have spent tens of millions on high tech equipment do._" [rather than refining them] "_You're money ahead just selling your old converters to a traveling buyer who hauls semi trailer loads to the refinery."_

2) Why is it that (at least it seems like it to me ) that 98% of refineries that routinely process PT & PD from other sources, do not refine catalytic converters? 
At first I thought it was because of the extra effort and equipment required to open the cans and remove the catalyst but then I saw that most won't even process the loose catalyst. Is there really something so different about catalytic converters or something so much more difficult, dangerous, tedious or expensive in the processing them that makes refining converters unattractive? - to a refiner? I thought I saw postings from people on this very site saying they have successfully refined PGMs from auto catalyst in a beaker or flask in their garage shop.

3) If a guy wants to set up and process 100 converters a day, there will be plenty of "experts" who will tell him "you can't do it" or "you won't make any money". Why not? What are these obstacles and restrictions that are so obvious to experts but escape others? 

4) The PT PD RH % relationship
I was lucky enough to have lunch with a former, now retired, lab employee of a major auto catalyst refinery recently. What he had to say really puzzled me but I can't imagine why he would be making things up. He claims that at his former place of employment truckloads of cats arrived daily, 4,000 cats per load, from buyers who traveled rural America, locating auto salvage yards and buying every converter on the lot. He said that one load, once de-canned, produced 9,000 - 10,000 lbs of catalyst which after being refined, yielded, on average, 575 to 600 Troy ounces of platinum. If I've calculated correctly, that works out to 4.48 grams of platinum per converter on average. That sounds very high to me.

The part that really threw me was he said the amount of palladium and rhodium recovered was so small it was almost inconsequential. He couldn't recall any specific numbers but I got the idea he thought the PD / RH values amounted to only a few dollars per converter as he said: " scrapping the empty stainless steel cans brought in more money for the company than selling the PD / RH did." I got the idea he thought that most all of the palladium was blown out the tailpipe over the life of the converter and there never was enough rhodium in one to worry about. Of course, I'm not ruling out that he is nuts and/or his employer may have been deliberately keeping his staff in the dark and/or misinformed.

How do you experts, who have real life experience in this area, ring in on this?

Half of what I read is: "So easy, anyone can do this!"
And the other half reads: "So difficult, no one can do it!"


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## rusty (Mar 13, 2011)

I think that your buddy the retired refining fellow hit the nail on the head, most of the precious metals are blown out the pipe over the useful lifespan of the converter.

Converters that have spent their life cycle in the city would be the worst to purchase as it takes several miles of travel time for catalyst to come up to operating temperature. It's a known fact that roadside hay being cut along the roads being feed to animals is contaminated with PGM's as well the dust from the roads being washed into storm and sewer drains.

I would think that walking a couple of blocks in any major city is a health hazard with platinum dust in the atmosphere.

There is no rational reasoning in how the buyers arrive at the ridiculous prices they are willing to pay for scrap converters without an assay. Other than the business is very competitive with the possibility it is not the buyers own money doing the buying and that he is only acting as an agent for the money man.

Buying scrap cats is like playing Russian roulette, the only way your going to win paying market value is by working in large volumes, with a reputable refiner. 

If you plan to refine this material yourself you must keep in mind the amount of time your inventory is being tied up from the time it takes gather enough from the field for enough material to de-can, mill the comb, assay the lot before refining even begins then we have to find a buyer which all eats up valuable time. 

Then we have to worry about market fluctuations.

Just my 2 bits.


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## skippy (Mar 13, 2011)

I'm not an expert and I've never sold a gram of PGM in my life. That said, I have played around with leaching various honeycomb samples to the point where I feel my opinion matters :lol:

#4 Palladium and rhodium are definately a significant parts of the recovery from catalyst. There's no room for doubt about this. Your guy maybe was talking about the days of bead converters.

#2 A refinery set up to work with highly concentrated PGM materials isn't going to want to deal with recovery from catalyst. They use small scale equipment that is meant for dealing with concentrated materials. Recovery from catalyst is a specialty, and demands larger scale equipment


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## Anonymous (Mar 13, 2011)

rusty said:


> I think that your buddy the retired refining fellow hit the nail on the head, most of the precious metals are blown out the pipe over the useful lifespan of the converter.


I agree..........BUT I'll buy your converter for scrap steel and I'll pay you much more than the scrap yard!


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## rusty (Mar 13, 2011)

mic said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> > I think that your buddy the retired refining fellow hit the nail on the head, most of the precious metals are blown out the pipe over the useful lifespan of the converter.
> ...



Alright what is my offer for 700 lbs de-canned cat comb, 75 lbs of bead plus 16 cats still in the cans.

Best Regards
Rusty


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## Lou (Mar 15, 2011)

I think we need to clarify "refining" and "reclamation" as that seems to be part of the trouble. Reclamation is far more resource intensive by its very nature.

Most people that say they refine converters mean that they consolidate them, and at best, recover some of the values out of them, whether that be by leaching, or by a hot method (which is almost exclusively what's used by the big recovery operations). I can't really think of any that do both--most accumulate and semi-refine, then send out to Metalor, JM, or Heraeus. 

Different years have different amounts of PGMs in varying proportions depending on market price and the state of the technology and other factors like make, year, and model and even where the vehicle is to be operated. Obviously, older catalytic converters were less efficient and required more platinum metals to have the same efficiency. Further complicating this is the fact that converters are made for the job. The converters off my friend's 997 Porsche Twin Turbo are not the same as the converters off of say a Toyota Camry or a small Pontiac. There might be four or five hundred dollars in metal in the ultra premium converters, and only $30 or $40 in the smaller ones for low-performance engines (which are high efficiency and run hotter so the catalysis is better, run leaner so less coking, and can be more diffusive in their monolith/honeycomb because horsepower isn't as important). 

Because their concentration is low, ranging from a couple hundred (mg/ kg) to at the very best a few thousand ppm (g/kg) of platinum group elements, it's imperative that an operation get as many as they possibly can. 

There's about 700-1000 converters to metric ton. Let's run some reasonable (yet still optimistic) numbers by presuming you're getting a metric ton of mixed converters of all years, wear levels, grades and the aforementioned factors. That's 1000 kg of ceramic content. We can probably assume a loading concentration of 700 ppm Pt, 350 ppm Pd, and 100 ppm Rh. Assume 98% extraction efficiency. 
Out of that ton, 685 g of Pt, 342 g Pd, and <98 g of Rh. The stainless steel we won't consider, as it won't be much. We'll further presume that the gamma alumina, cordierite, and any lanthanides in the wash coat on the monolith are not recovered in an economically advantageous form (they're just sold off for slagging). This means we've got 22 ozt Pt, 11 ozt Pd, and 3.1 oz Rh. At today's prices, the full value of metals is about $52,000 at full market value, which you won't get. 

Now if one were getting large GMs and exotic converters by the ton, I can see where retirement would be quick and quite enjoyable, as that may be over double. In reality, I think conservatively, it's closer to $20,000-30,000 a ton on average or 20-30 USD/kg. Again, there are many factors and much of it comes to having a great feedstock and high quality inbound material. 


Making, refining, buying/selling, etc. of converters is a billions of dollars per annum business. I can see why everyone's attracted to it. It's not easy. It won't ever be, and it's just going to get harder. Even if you manage to get the metal out, you still need to either know how to refine it and assay it to get the most money.


Lou


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## nickvc (Mar 16, 2011)

I think Lou,s dead on with his figures as to average yields having assayed several crushed and milled samples. The figures seem to be around $50 -$60 per kilo on the samples I've had sampled allowing for around a 90% return on the recovered Pt and Pd and 80% on the Rh but I'm not to sure on the efficiency of the the recovery having never tried it or had samples of refined substrates.


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## skippy (Apr 2, 2011)

I just thought I would post something interesting I found on ebay. The quote is taken from a past auction for 100 cats in the UK:

THEY ALL HAVE THE CERAMIC HONEYCOMBE CAT INSIDE THEM, ALSO NOTE THAT THESE HAVE NOT BEEN TAMPERED WITH AND HAD ACID POURED THRU THEM TO REMOVE THE PRECIOUS PLATINUM & RHODIUM CONTENT (YOU CAN TELL WHEN THIS HAS BEEN DONE DUE TO THE CERAMIC INSIDE THE CAT BEING A RED COLOUR).

I hadn't heard of this but I suppose it makes sense that crooked people would try to extract the metals in place and keep the cat housing and monolith as a sort of counterfeit.
Something to watch out for!

Further I would also like to say to Rusty, I was previously doubtful, but now I believe you are right, and that catalytic converters often do lose a lot of their content over the life of the converter. I have observed very weak leaching from cats that are supposed to be high grade. My apologies to you Gill.


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## skippy (Apr 3, 2011)

http://www.catscams.com/

Here's some more info on dirty tricks people have apparently played with catalytic converters.


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## skippy (Jun 12, 2011)

Here's some experience with the matter of washed cats from GRF member Bubba. Thanks for the info, and thanks for letting me pass it along to the group.
It sounds like it is something to watch out for, but not to let the possiblity get you too paranoid and twitchy. 



> Tom,
> I have seen a few washed cats, usually they will have a tell tale smell, and a black crust inside the unit. The majority of the buyers I talk with are not too concerned with washed cats for a couple of reasons, first, the iron from the shells kills the chemistry before you can pull more than say 30%-40% of the PGM's. And to do it right it is quite time comsuming.
> Second, this is a small business, and we all talk. Someone outside of Vancouver, Canada tried to dump 1500 washed units on a friend of mine in Texas, it didn't work, and within a week every major buyer in the country knew what was up. It was about six months later that a guy from Idaho showed up at my door with 600 units, I suspected that they were washed so i checked a few with our XRF analyzer and sure enough, they were. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that these units were the same that got rejected in Texas. andy.



If anyone has any experience with AC 4 dot converters, I bought ten of them thinking that I would get a good sample size of a particular grade. I decanned them and crushed them and ran a sample of the well mixed material from all 10 and there was no palladium! Is this normal?


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