Help Recycling Cat Converters

[lmschers]

First off, I've gone over to lazersteve's site, and I'd totally your CD for 25$
But I'm in Thailand right now and it would suck to wait for,
and it's also problematic for me to pay for things online right now.
I could hit you up on paypal if you could then let me download the videos somehow.

I am trying to recycle the platinum in catalytic converters.
I want to be able to make platinum wire so I can use it for the electrolysis of salt water.
I want to use photovoltaic cells to run the electrolysis.
I want to turn salt water into hydrochloic acid for cleaner and sodium hydroxide for soap.

I have soldered together my own solar cells.
I work through the chemistry department on my campus and buy chemicals through them.
I have all the acids, an oxy torch, and ceramics.

So far, I have only tried to use aqua regia and ammonium chloride to reclaim the platinum.
I crushed up the catalytic converter, poured on some aqua regia, warmed it up, cooked it till there was no more dissolving.
I ended up with an orange solution.
I also had some black slime as sediment.
SHOULD THERE BE ANY PLATINUM IN THAT SEDIMENT?
It is like a thick liquid black slime.
It is obviously dirty from the smoke in the cat converter.

I poured off the orange liquid and focused on getting the platinum out of it.
I added ammonium chloride, it changed colors to a light yellow and i got a mushy muddy orange sponge.
But when I tried to torch the sponge, I just ended up with a black flaky metal.
This black metal won't dissolve in nitric though...
I think I used way too much ammonium chloride and just burnt it.
Must I use borax when melting/re-solidifying the platinum?

I have read (and am still re-reading) Hoke.
I am reading through the goldrefining forum but it's thick.
I have also scoured youtube with inconclusive results.
I've even been reading Isaac Newton's alchemical writings.

Who is really good at recycling catalytic converters and PGMs?
Do you know anyone who wants an adept/student?
Is there a definitive website?
Can we make a good instructive thread here in the forum?
This sounds like something everyone could benefit from.
I mean... PLATINUM CURES CANCER!
Have any of you heard of cisplatinum?
Check this video from THE PERIODIC TABLE OF VIDEOS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucWHB0Ea6cE

Thanks everyone for all the information already.
Keep up the sharing.

 

[nickvc]

Are you sure there's platinum in there? Many cats seem to have a mixture of pgms in so Pt Pd or Rh are all possibilities and modern cats seem to be heading towards Pd as it's a cheaper alternative,could this be your slime residues. I must admit pgms aren't my speciality so I might be wrong
Lou did an excellent post on refining pgms,which will probably help more than I can.

 

[lazersteve]

Mscher,

There is not a fast track to learning PGM recovery and refining, or any other recovery and refining for that matter. Having all of the acids and materials is only one part of the process and not the difficult part I might add.

All of the information you have requested is right here on the forum. Take the time to search for terms like converter, honeycomb, cats, fusion, and the like and begin reading.

As for shipping my DVD, I'm willing to bet that if you order the DVD and pay with Western Union or Paypal that you will have it in your hands before you can read all of the necessary writings. I have shipped the DVD around the world and so far everyone has received their DVD in a reasonable amount of time (7-10 working days).

Once you have studied the processes then you will have to begin the long uphill battle of learning the proper way to recover and refine PGMs. This is as much of an art as it is a science. As you have found in your initial experiment, it's not all as easy as add A to B to get C. There is a lot to know about the processes and what works and what does not work. One example is proper filtration of the extract before precipitation, another is proper reaction conditions for the precipitation process. I've been refining PGMs for several years and I'm still learning new things and perfecting my techniques. There only so much you'll learn from a book or DVD, the rest comes with experience.

The black sludge is likely just carbon and may contain a slight amount of PGMs, only an assay of the sludge will tell you for sure. I wash the soot out of my combs with water before soaking the whole comb in HCl-Cl. AR can be used on the washed combs with heating and accomplish the job in a few hours with proper stirring and reaction conditions. The combs also contain a lot of iron contamination usually. This comes from the metal housing and support mesh found in many cats. It is not too difficult to remove, but the process is laborious and requires a few refining cycles to eliminate most of the contamination.

No single recovery process will be 100% efficient for PGM recovery from cats. The best methods are ones that recover the PGMs via gas phase extraction or those that use a collector metal to recover the PGMs from the molten comb material. I do not cover these types of extraction techniques on the DVD. With liquid extraction up to 95% recovery is about the best result you can expect depending on your technique. Subsequent fusion of the left overs with bisulphate may bring you closer to 98-99% recovery (especially if any Rh is present). Once recovered the PGMs will still require separation if you desire purified metals as you do for making Pt wire.

You can buy Pt wire all over the place and save yourself the hassles and headaches of recovering and refining cats, unless you are like me and just like to refine!

Steve

 

[lmschers]

Awesome. Ok so steve, you reccomend hydrochloric acid and just pure chlorine powder?
So that is all that's needed to dissolve the platinum?
That sounds so much easier.

Thank you steve. I watched your video on Youtube, it was how I found the forum.
And about the DVD, I want it, but I am really in the countryside in thailand though.
Last time I had something sent here, they "taxed" me an extra 30$ on the package. lame...

I've tried 3 different cats, working on my technique each time.
I was having to work with the time constraints of a chemistry department though, and it was troublesome. So now I work at home so I can pay more attention to everything and have uninterrupted work.

From reading Hoke and the forum it seems that i need to:
1)soak the cat in aqua regia (and a little added hydrogen peroxide to make the nitric more efficient)
2)warm everything and cook it just under boiling for a few hours
3)pour off and filter the resulting orange liquid
4)add some sulphiric acid and a little more hydrochloric and cook it down to a syrup, in order to get rid of the nitric
5) stir in my ammonium chloride liquid to make a precipitate
6) filter the precipitate out
7) cook that powder gently to drive off the ammonium chloride
8) melt what's left with an oxy torch
9) do a little dance

I'm going to try the simple hydrochloric acid and powder approach on the next cat.
I've got 2 left to work on.

Do you think i need to add something like borax while melting with an oxy torch?
the hoke book reccomended that, is it important? maybe that was just for gold... i dunno.
my cat converters are from large trucks, the kind that has two honeycombs in them.
I've saw a video that said the converters like that had different concentrations of metals in them.
I'd like to find out which ones are the best to get and how to efficiently use the other metals than platinum, just so they're not wasted.
I just want to be able to make platinum wire because you can practically work miracles with the stuff.
I mean seriously... watch that youtube video i posted, PLATINUM CURES CANCER.
Personally, I want it so i can go to africa and do solar powered electrolysis of common salt water.

 

[Lino1406]

Why you refer only to platinum? you can also have palladium,
about twice or trice the Pt amount, rhodium, about third...
To melt Pt you need of course borax and a fitting crucible

 

[Harold_V]

To melt Pt you need of course borax and a fitting crucible

Not in my experience. One uses no flux when melting platinum, nor is one a requirement. Borax would likely be very troublesome at the melting point of platinum.

Harold

 

[Lino1406]

you are right of course Harold (as always). I recall now that what I melted
was in fact palladium mixed with platinum. And - also with palladium alone
borax is somewhat troublesome

 

[lmschers]

ahh... i still can't get this right.

harold you advise against adding any water to all the acid.
like... i should cook down the AR till it's a goo to drive off the nitric.
(what if i go too far and just have yellow dust...?)

then am I supposed to add a lot of water with the ammonium chloride?

i read gilchrist and the paper said that platinum precipitates out at pH 7.
so am i supposed to dilute with a lot of water till it's clear?


also... and this is a different trial.
I tried dissolving a cat converter with AR with a lot of H2O2 to keep the brown NO fumes from coming out.
I evaporated the AR after it was done reacting (it was dark orange) and I was left with a fine gray powder.
I tried to torch the powder though, and it started to get nice and hot and then popped and vanished...
i either need to work on my blowtorch skillz or clean the powder somehow...

 

[Harold_V]

ahh... i still can't get this right.

harold you advise against adding any water to all the acid.
like... i should cook down the AR till it's a goo to drive off the nitric.
(what if i go too far and just have yellow dust...?)

Ok, let's look at this from the perspective that Hoke presents.

The platinum metals are unlike silver and gold in that they do not precipitate from dilute solutions, and may or may not precipitate entirely from solutions that are concentrated enough to permit precipitation. It might pay for you to review Hoke's comments in that regard. There's a lot to absorb when you first set out to learn these processes, and you're bound to forget, or overlook, some of the important bits of information that spell the difference between success and failure.

So then, after one has evaporated, the solution should be taken up with enough water to fully liquefy any substances that are inclined to be in solution. This step is important, for it is mandatory that the resulting solution lends itself to filtration, so impurities that manifest themselves as solids can be removed. Do keep in mind, the filter will be washed down well after filtration, further diluting the solution, so dilute sparingly at the outset.

I hesitate to suggest any given degree of dilution. Try to keep platinum metal solutions as concentrated as you can, so you can affect a recovery. Otherwise you will be forced to send them to the stock pot, where they will be cemented and saved for future processing. In time you'll come to understand that it is pointless to worry about traces, such as that which is found from processing small amounts of dental gold. In such a case, after gold has been precipitated, one is generally better served to send the remaining solution directly to the stock pot to avoid attempts that generally result in failure.

then am I supposed to add a lot of water with the ammonium chloride?

You can minimize the amount of water added with ammonium chloride by dissolving the ammonium chloride in hot water. Dissolution is an endothermic reaction, so the hot water is rapidly chilled. By heating, you can dissolve a greater amount of material in a restricted amount of water.

i read gilchrist and the paper said that platinum precipitates out at pH 7.
so am i supposed to dilute with a lot of water till it's clear?

I may be wrong here, so please do due diligence before accepting what I have to say as fact.
The way I interpret that comment is to suggest that all you have to do to precipitate the material is to shift the pH from 1 or slightly greater to 7 or greater. At that point, yes, you likely will precipitate the platinum, but you'll also precipitate other constituents.

In the course of running my humble refining service, I recovered about 75 ounces of platinum. In all of my experiences, I was never concerned about pH, which was always acidic--likely ranging from 1 to 3. I had a tendency to allow free HCl. In all cases, assuming I had a level of concentration that was acceptable, precipitation was fast and sure. In one case, I had roughly 2 liters of solution, to which I poured a liter of dissolved ammonium chloride. The reaction was instantaneous--a heavy yellow cloud. It was also one of the very rare occasions where I experienced an almost 100% recovery. Hoke talks about that, too.

Hope this helps.

Harold

 

[lmschers]

Ok yeah, that definitely helps.
I was trying to wrap my head around getting rid of the concentrated chlorine.
I think I just need to be brave enough now to work with all the platinum that I can.
I hear at BEST I could get half a gram of Pt from a full large cat converter.
can anyone second that?

I'm going to cook a full cat in a 50/50 solution of reagent grade HCl and H2O2(30%) tonight.
I'll vacuum filter it, then try to precipitate with the most concentrated ammonium chloride that I can make in warm water.

Thanks Harold.

 

[lazersteve]

Check this thread for more details that may be helpful:

Refining Cats

Steve

 

[skippy]

I'm going to cook a full cat in a 50/50 solution of reagent grade HCl and H2O2(30%) tonight.
Thanks Harold.

Very bad idea. Mixing that much fairly concentrated hydrogen peroxide
with HCL will result in massive chlorine gas generation. If you added it all together at once, it could be very violent, and very very nasty.

A little Chlorine gas bubbling through cat material is supposed to be beneficial though.

 

[lmschers]

there was no violent reaction.

some chlorine gas evaporated while i cooked though,
i put a damp cloth on top.
nothing serious.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I am going to take a stab and say either you didn't use 30% hydrogen peroxide or you didn't mix 50/50 then. Or you have ice cubes in your soultion....

Correct information is handy when you run into a problem and ask for help. 8)

 

[lmschers]

yeah, i dunno...
my chemicals are reagent grade.

I did pour them both into a beaker of cat dust though.
H202 first, then HCl.
i didn't mix them together first before pouring them on the dust.

There was bubbling and whatnot, but nothing violent.
I figure they just started going to work on the metal ASAP.

 

[lmschers]

So I didn't take a picture of the dust from the Cl and H2O2, but it's kind of brown-isn. I'm cooking down the acid water at the moment and I'll try to precipitate something tonight.

While I was doing that I just decided to torch a cat and see what it was like.
I also "dissolved" one in boiling sulfiric acid and let it cook all night to evaporate the acid.
I didn't really dissolve much, but there is a noticeable gray powdered mess on the bottom.
I'm assuming those are the heavy PGMs.
The sulfiric made the whole mess rather firm, I know it makes crystals of other things, but this was kind of like baking a cake...
I had to break it apart to get it out of the glass beaker.

I'm going to wash this stuff off and go to work on that gray at the bottom.