# Recovery of the Palladium



## argonsolucoes (Apr 12, 2020)

Hello my friends, I'm from Brazil, so I'm sorry for any mistake with the words!
I am learning the processes now, so I had a doubt and I was able to verify that the forum has a lot of good people in it and is willing to help others.
After using nitric acid in palladium, the solution has plenty of copper too, which is the best way to precipitate palladium.

I thank the help of all!


----------



## butcher (Apr 12, 2020)

The copper dissolved in solution is not metal any more, it is copper ions or a salt of copper(copper atoms with missing or shared electrons).

The copper ions have already given up or shared their electrons, they have no electron to give up to cement the palladium ions in solution which are also missing or sharing the electrons from their atoms being ions or salts of palladium.

Bus bar copper metal with all of its electrons in its atoms will displace (give the palladium ions electrons to change the palladium ion to an atom of palladium with all of its electrons, changing the Pd from being salt to being metal Pd powder and fall out of solution, as the copper bus bar dissolves into solution.

There are several other reducing agents for palladium depending on the type of anions involved in the salt, reducing agents like Zn, Fe, Cu, Al, Mg, DMG, sodium chlorate, SO2 gas (from palladium sulfate solutions), FeSO4 (from nitric solutions), NH4Cl (from nitrate solution), copper I chloride, formic acid, 


one of the other members can list them better and detail their problems better than I can.


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 12, 2020)

Thanks friend, more for your experience what would be the best method for a medium scale quantity? Do you think NH4CL or the copper bar? As for the time of the process, I'm in no hurry.
Using the copper bar method would you be able to reach a good purity?
Thank you very much Buddy!


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Apr 12, 2020)

Hello!

What's the source of Palladium? It's from electronic scrap?

I think your best bet is DMG (dimethylglyoxime or dimetilglioxima in portuguese).


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 12, 2020)

Hello friend, yes, it's electronic waste.
But it is difficult for us to find someone who wants to help us, my salvation was to find this forum !!! Thank you all !!!

I've already seen talking about DMG, but I'm in doubt, what should be the ph before putting the DMD?


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Apr 12, 2020)

The first step I would take is to analyse the solution to see how much palladium it has.

Very often there's almost nothing, because the scrap wasn't sorted right.

I would send to be analysed by ICP-OES on Central Analítica do Instituto de Química of the University of Sao Paulo. CA IQ-USP (http://ca.iq.usp.br/)

It will be just R$45,00 for just palladium. The price is R$45,00 each element.

Already tried to help many people from this type of source, most of them give up because the scrap was mixed and had too little Pd.


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 12, 2020)

It's actually electronic waste, but I wanted to do the process on the mmlc capacitors, which have a palladium, I have around 2kg of them. As the situation is not easy, I don't want to risk ruining everything. So I had already seen talking about DMG, I even bought it, but I never used it yet because I want to be sure which is the best way.


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 14, 2020)

Friends, can someone help me?
In order to precipitate palladium in a palladium nitrate solution with DMG, should I raise the pH to what level? Could you use caustic soda?


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Apr 14, 2020)

Personally, I would simply cement it out with copper as butcher suggested earlier. Copper will only cement precious metals and mercury if it happens to be present. It is inexpensive, easy to do, and it avoids creating a palladium dimethylglyoxime complex that will require another step to convert it to palladium metal.

Dave


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 14, 2020)

I understand friend Dave, sorry for my lack of knowledge .... kkk ..... I'm still learning. If you can help me further on this question I would be very grateful, what would be the process after the DMG to metallize? And let's suppose you wanted to use DMG, you could use caustic soda to raise the pH and even what number before using the dmg.

Thank you Dave!


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Apr 14, 2020)

argonsolucoes said:


> I understand friend Dave, sorry for my lack of knowledge .... kkk ..... I'm still learning. If you can help me further on this question I would be very grateful, what would be the process after the DMG to metallize? And let's suppose you wanted to use DMG, you could use caustic soda to raise the pH and even what number before using the dmg.
> 
> Thank you Dave!



My question is why would you want to use DMG? Do you understand that DMG is more expensive? Do you understand how difficult it is to get DMG into solution? Do you understand that the precipitate is very voluminous?

The answers to your question are here on the forum. I've only ever used DMG for testing because of the issues I mentioned above. If I ever face a situation where I need to use it for a bulk precipitation, I can use the search to find the information.

Dave


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 14, 2020)

It's just that I've seen a lot of people saying that if you use the copper bar the palladium will have copper impurities, that's why I thought about DMG.


----------



## butcher (Apr 14, 2020)

You will most like to do best just learning how and recovering the palladium safely and letting the professionals refine it. 
How are you going to deal with the toxic waste you create in the recovery process that is what you need to be studying. 
Why are you concerned about refining and melting palladium, you have not even done the homework to recover it safely.


----------



## argonsolucoes (Apr 15, 2020)

I'm sorry for the lack of knowledge, I just think that knowledge is a good that whenever possible to acquire is good to acquire, unfortunately it is not easy to find good people in this world to help us.

Regarding toxicity, rest assured, I am aware, I always work in a chapel and have a box for washing and purifying the gases.


----------



## butcher (Apr 15, 2020)

The box will not wash and purify acids.
I seriously doubt you know all of the dangers, I have studied this diligently for many years, and could study it another lifetime and still not understand all of the dangers.

And you have not even studied the basics but feel you already are safe working in a box? 

I wish I could find a box that would magically make these operations safe, and protect me and all of my neighbors from dangers, I could not find a magic box, I have to spend my time educating myself.

The problem is not that there is a lack of people to help educate you or help you,
The problem rears its ugly head when you do not help yourself.
I do not expect others to teach me or guide me, I do not need others to guide me or help me (although it is nice when they do) I work to educate myself.


argonsolucoes, 
No offense my friend, but to think you understand all of the dangers and are safe, where you are not (or do not think you need to ) be spending your time to studying and learning how dangerous and how unsafe these different operations are to deal with is putting yourself in a very dangerous box. 
In a box of dangers that even all the help form all of the friends in the world could not help you get out of, because you are not willing to learn to see ---what you do not know, but believe you already know the dangers, your friends cannot educate you or even help you from the box, thus making it hard for them to help you learn to recover and refine precious metals safely.

Study the safety
educate yourself
Do not expect others to fill your brain with understanding, search for it diligently yourself, do not expect others to give you the knowledge, do the hard work to find it for yourself, do not expect to find wisdom as a birthday gift from your friends wrapped in a pretty neat package, that box may be empty but full of good intentions...

PGMs are scarce and are so rare, most of will see very little of these metals in our lifetime, so hard to recover and refine, so dangerous, why spend the time trying to refine them unless you're sitting on tons of it, when you can just recover the PGM's and sell them (letting someone else refine and melt), possibly for more of a profit than could get if you tried to refine and melt it yourself.


----------



## anachronism (Apr 15, 2020)

Show me some gold Richard.


----------



## butcher (Apr 15, 2020)

How much would satisfy you, Jon, If it is that important to you I could dig it up to take pictures and re-burry it. But I will not give any clues as to where my gold is buried, and there is no treasure map of it.


What is the purpose, of your statement, what am I missing????

Are you serious, if so why, what is your point, or is this a British thing that they call humor? British logic that us ole country boys across the pond are unaware of?


----------



## Sorrycantseeme (Apr 16, 2020)

Is Palladium recovery really that toxic? I thought you just put a bunch of baking soda on wastestream and pour it out , you just got to remember to wear gloves.


----------



## Shark (Apr 16, 2020)

Platinum group metals, often referred to as pgm's, are toxic when in solution. I would say ask Freechemist, but he didn't survive, and he was very knowledgeable and careful about refining. That sounds harsh, and it is, but it is also true. There are other members in the past who have dealt with the chemicals we use and had severe problems with their health. Once this stuff gets in your system it most likely will be there the rest of your life. Refining is not a toy and and it can kill you as well as your friends, neighbors and pets.


----------



## butcher (Apr 16, 2020)

Palladium recovery is it really that toxic? I thought you just put a bunch of baking soda on waste stream and pour it out, you just got to remember to wear gloves.


That would be good advice on how to poison your neighbors and put us all in danger of these water-soluble toxic salts...

Dealing with waste is simple but not that simple.
Study, the topic dealing with waste, do not think you know. Study to learn.

Thinking you understand the safety aspects and are working safely without doing the hard work to study is deadly to you and all of us who live on this planet and drink the water or eat from the fruits of the land.

When you understand how to deal with waste safely you will also learn and come to understand many important principles and reactions that are so important in recovery and refining, basically not only are you less likely to harm yourself or members of your family.
By studying how to properly work safely, and how to properly deal with the toxic waste, you will also learn the important facts that will help you in other processes of learning to become better at recovery and refining of the precious metals.


----------



## kurtak (Apr 16, 2020)

argonsolucoes said:


> the solution has plenty of copper too,



What makes you think the MLCCs had/have palladium in them

BEFORE the mid to late 1990s MLCCs where made with Pd & silver - AFTER the mid to late 1990s MOST MLCCs are made of copper & nickle

The fact that your solution "has plenty of copper" tells me the MLCCS are the ones made AFTER mid 1990s

Therefore it is "likely" they had/have little or no Pd (or silver) in them

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Apr 16, 2020)

To clarify - if the MLCCs came from circuit boards made AFTER the mid 1990s there is likely little or no Pd/silver in them --- that's not an absolute - but more likely

Kurt


----------



## anachronism (Apr 16, 2020)

butcher said:


> Are you serious, if so why, what is your point, or is this a British thing that they call humor? British logic that us ole country boys across the pond are unaware of?



Hah! Yep something like that for sure! 8)


----------



## Sorrycantseeme (Apr 16, 2020)

What a lil splashes on your forearm but u wash it off quick . Will u get sick for sure.?


----------



## butcher (Apr 16, 2020)

Jon,
I kinda thought it was something like that, I have studied Boolean logic and have used it extensively, in my work, but have no experience with what you call British logic, is there any relation--?

Sorrycantseeme,
These questions are answered in your study of safety.
My arms are all scratched up from logging in the woods, I would not want any toxic salts that I can avoid in those scratches if my arms were not all scratched up, I still do not wish to have toxic salts of metals or acids in my face on my hands, in my eyes, in my lungs, in my bloodstream, in my drinking water, in soil I grew food to eat from or that would leach into my well.

I would not worry you most likely not die tonight if you wiped the few drops off your arm, How much toxic metals salt or acid that get past the layer of your hide and into your bloodstream (well it may take time to tell).
I would worry more about understanding the dangers, understanding how to work safely protecting yourself from getting poisoned, your lungs full of liquids (from fumes) how these metals can enter your bloodstream, how the can dissolve in the rain and poison a whole town downriver making them sick, How it can penetrate the building or area you live in and slowly silently poison you...

I would not worry about dying tonight if you wiped your arm off, I would worry more about you harming yourself your family and others by not studying and leaning the dangers and how to take safety precautions and use safety gear, store the chemicals, mix chemicals and metals and not have some glassware blow up in your face, breathing toxic fumes, fill the walls of your work area or home with poisonous fumes or toxic metals.

There are many dangers involved and many things to study to learn to be able to work safely in a chemistry lab, and in a gold or silver refining lab.

we also have more specialty labs that may work with especially dangerous chemistry working with highly toxic metals we can include the platinum group here, radioactive metals, hard to control toxic gases, acids, caustic solutions, organic chemistry labs, medical and disease labs, it takes much more study and an understanding of the dangers as the dangers are higher, precautions and lab safety equipment...

Basically, before mixing metals and acids you need to study diligently, you can make something that explodes, blinds you, destroys your lungs, your liver and whatever other bloody organs you have in your gut, burn you, poison you, make your baby sick or worse...

What we do is dangerous in many aspects your only protection is to educate yourself.
You do not get gold from mixing acids and metals, you get gold from what you know from educating yourself. 
You get hurt or harm others by being uneducated and unaware...


----------



## Sorrycantseeme (Apr 17, 2020)

what vapor fills your lungs with fluid , im curious after this little debacle no mas for me!;!!


----------



## butcher (Apr 17, 2020)

The fumes and vapors from these acids and oxidizers we use can easily destroy your lungs, as the vapors enter the lungs the gases turn into acids when they hit the moisture or water in your lung tissues, your lungs fill with liquids and you cannot breathe you drown in these fluids, trying to breathe a breath of air we now take for granted.

Some fumes or vapors we can smell some are silent and we cannot smell them or know when they invade our body, some may even smell good like almonds or something else, some people can smell other people cannot, some are heavier than air and will rise to the ceiling, some cling low to the ground and could kill the dog in the lab but you may not get as large of a dose standing in front of your fume hood, 

other gases you may breathe in, and choke on them and go on not noticing anything until the scaring in your lungs are so bad you struggle to get the air or oxygen through your lungs into your bloodstream, and you end up suffering from COPD...
needing medical oxygen or more to survive...

These different deadly toxic or dangerous fumes come from many processes and souces we work with, from dealing with an acid solution to melting salts or salts of metals or ore rock...

The metals like arsenic and other toxic metals even the platinum group mercury lead ... can also be carried in these vapors and work to your destruction, entering your bloodstream is many different ways including through your lungs.

Look Sorrycantseeme,
I am the worst one on the forum to ask these questions, I study and work the best I can to protect myself and my family, I study to ensure I am doing everything I can to be as safe as I can with anything I generate or dispose of. 
But I cannot explain all of these different dangers, and (how you can protect to yourself or others the medical facts, what happens to our body as these toxic metals and gases or solutions begin to destroy them or our organs, what-ifs or if-not...............

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4427717/

You will have to do your own study if the members here have not convinced you by now of that fact, then learning chemistry or how to recover or refine metals is not something for you or something you should even think about learning, or trying to do, as you will not profit...

I need to get back up in the mountains and dig.


----------



## kurtak (Apr 17, 2020)

Sorrycantseeme said:


> What a lil splashes on your forearm but u wash it off quick . Will u get sick for sure.?



YES :!: :!: :!: --- BUT - it's not like if you get "little" slash(s) on you today then tomorrow you are going to feel sick

you need to think about it like lead or mercury "poisoning" --- get "a little bit" in your system & it does not go away - it gets in your blood - the blood runs through the organs in your body - then it "settles" in the organs & it STAYS there - because it is TOXIC - it STARTS making you sick - over time you get sicker & sicker

So - instead of living to 60/70/80/90 you die at 50/60/70/80 & the sickness is something you start "feeling" in the last few years of that shorter life

One drop on your skin one time in your life is not something you really need to worry about --- but when you start "working" with it - & you get "a FEW' drops on your skin - each time you work with it - Like I said - it BUILDS up in your body - the more it builds up in your body the shorter it is going to make your life & the sicker you will get as you come to the end of that shorter life

Your skin is like a paper towel - AS SOON as that splash gets on your skin - at least "some" of that slash is absorbed - "into" - the skin - no matter how fast it is wiped/washed off

The blood that then flows to the skin to keep it living then picks it up - that blood then flows to the rest of the body - when it (the blood) flows through the bodies organs - that is where it gets "deposited" & then BUILDS UP

In other words - YES - you are poisoning your self you just don't know it --- YET :!: :!: :!: 

Get the picture :?: :!: :?: :!: 

Kurt


----------



## Shark (Apr 17, 2020)

Look up the symptoms of a just a few metals that can poison the system. Then think about how it would feel to have to go through that or maybe watch and care for some one you love that has to go through it. The easier option would be to do everything you can to protect them and yourself. The past few years I have watched my wife work hard to take care of me at times from other health issues. That is something I do not wish to add to.


----------



## g_axelsson (Apr 27, 2020)

Sorrycantseeme said:


> what vapor fills your lungs with fluid , im curious after this little debacle no mas for me!;!!



I'm no doctor, I'm a trained physicist working with computers and dabbling in chemistry as a hobby. A quick googling gave me the result.

https://www.medicinenet.com/pulmonary_edema/article.htm

It's called *pulmonary edema* and the fluid isn't coming from the vapor, it comes from your body after the lungs have been damaged. The damage can come from several different sources, breathing in harmful chemical vapors can be one. Hart conditions can also cause problems. Ask your doctor.

If you inhale a lot of toxic vapors over a short time you will probably get what's called chemical pneumonia.
https://www.webmd.com/lung/chemical-pneumonia#1

And just as PGM exposure, the damage can be cumulative so what you do when you are 30 could kill you when you are 60.

Göran


----------



## Lou (Apr 27, 2020)

It's the repeated damage-healing-damage-healing cycles they say cause idiopathic lung fibrosis, which is a progressive and terminal disease but for a transplant.


----------



## hamedpooya (May 17, 2020)

Hello dear friends
Before discussing this topic, I would like to thank you for all the useful content and experiences that you provide to others.
I have some soil that has already been analyzed and contains palladium, platinum and iridium. There are definitely 3 other members of the platinum family.
I poured 200 mg of soil into the human body and mixed it with hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide and boiled it for about two hours. After cooling, I filtered the solution and reheated it a little, and added about 100 ml of ferrous sulfate solution to it, and after stirring, after 2 minutes, the yellow deposits began to form and settled down to the human bottom. Could these sediments be platinum and palladium? Meanwhile, the color of the upper part of the sediments is still dark brown. If so, tell us how to separate them.
Thank you all dear friends. Farid


----------



## FrugalRefiner (May 17, 2020)

hamedpooya said:


> Hello dear friends
> Before discussing this topic, I would like to thank you for all the useful content and experiences that you provide to others.
> I have some soil that has already been analyzed and contains palladium, platinum and iridium. There are definitely 3 other members of the platinum family.
> I poured 200 mg of soil into the human body and mixed it with hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide and boiled it for about two hours. After cooling, I filtered the solution and reheated it a little, and added about 100 ml of ferrous sulfate solution to it, and after stirring, after 2 minutes, the yellow deposits began to form and settled down to the human bottom. Could these sediments be platinum and palladium? Meanwhile, the color of the upper part of the sediments is still dark brown. If so, tell us how to separate them.
> Thank you all dear friends. Farid



Farid, welcome to the forum. I'm guessing English is not your native language. You mentioned the human body and human bottom. but I'm sure that's not what you meant. The human body is a person's body (their bones, and muscles, and skin). From the context of your post and the picture I'm guessing you meant a beaker.

You also say you put 200 mg of your "soil" into the beaker. 200 mg is a tiny amount. It's only two tenths of a gram. But from your picture there is quite a bit of precipitate.

Ferrous sulfate is pretty selective for gold. In fact, if you have a solution that contains gold, platinum, and palladium, ferrous sulfate is suggested to precipitate the gold and leave the platinum and palladium in solution, so I doubt the precipitate is platinum or palladium.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I'm not sure what you have.

Dave


----------



## hamedpooya (May 18, 2020)

I'm sorry, I mean the word (( beaker))


----------



## hamedpooya (May 18, 2020)

I filtered the yellow sediments, then put a small amount of it in another Beaker and added a little water on it.Immediately the sediment dissolved, a yellow solution formed, and a small amount of white sediment formed at the bottom of the vessel.What can this be?


----------

