Inquart mixed PGM's?

[Justincase]

Not necessarily. Being small can be quite the advantage. What is "safe" for a single man operation is negligence for an environment where you have employees. Mind you I am not talking about processing of Ru, Ir, Os....the only one of those worth chasing for a little guy is Ir, and you better be getting it free because the premiums on the sale are going to eat your profit quick.

The biggest setback is the cost of entry for analytics for the pgm's. Lou will tell you that the quantitative chemistry always wins, but you'll need ICP spectrometry for efficiency. You simply can't do it with AAS, and XRF is too inaccurate.

In Geo's case here, the first thing I'd do is send it out for a proper nickel sulfide fusion / assay to make sure he actually has the anticipated amount of Rhodium present and isn't chasing a $35,000 dream.

Outside the realms of industrial catalyst and aircraft supper alloy there is very little P.G.M. to have.
Even in the scrap jewelry trade, you are talking a few grams of Pt and Pd even less Ru for every kilo of gold you have through.
They are detectable in electronics but the amount you would need to process to recover any financially expedient amount would by necessity bump you up to an "industrial" level of operation.
What is a challenge for a well-funded lab is quite likely a danger for less equipped individuals to try no matter what is being said on YouTube.

 

[kurtak]

Agreed. Small scale business is vanishing, not only from PGM industry. Naturally or forcefully.
I was just upset when I heard our 2% Rh in material wouldn´t be paid. Knowing that they will certainly be paid for it, when sell to bigger refiner who actually refine the mixture. Straight rip-off.

Per the bold print - I have to disagree (at least to a point)

As we know - when we start working with alloys that contain 2 or more metals we need to go through more steps/processes to get a separation of those metals

Therefore - the percentages of each of the metals needs to be high enough to cover the cost of separating each metal

Example - say someone sends me a 1 or 2 kilo batch of say gold filled &/or gold plated jewelry to process

In that 1 - 2 kilo batch there is likely to be "some" GF or GP on silver (this is of course being processed for the gold)

So - in step 1 we put the GF/GP in nitric to dissolve the base metals (& "maybe" some silver) in order to get our gold foils

Step 2 - wash all the nitric leach out of the foils so we can move to AR on the gold foils - the gold being what the clients is going to be paid out on (so that is a no brainer - the client gets there percentage - I - as the refiner get my percentage) --- in other words - the steps in the refining "for the gold" are all part of the percentage agreement between client/refiner - which includes step 1

However - in this case - step1 is/was part of the process of going for the gold & MOSTLY a step to remove base metals

It just happens - that in that step - you "may" (or not) end up dissolving "some" silver

If - in the event you dissolved "some" silver in step 1 - you now have to do additional steps to recover that silver

Let say (for the sake of putting it in perspective) that in this batch we dissolved 1ozt silver

The "additional" steps I need to go through to recover that 1 ozt silver (keeping in mind that this needs to be done on "the batch" if you are going to "account" for it)------------

Step 1 - cement the silver from the nitric leach (in which I am using up some of my "personal" copper as will as the time for this step)

Step 2 - washing the chem out of silver cement - more time

step 3 - dry the cement - more time plus electric to run the hot plate

Step 4 - melt the dried cement - more time & torch gas

Bare minimum time to get this done = 4 hours (likely ALL DAY - though you can do other things between steps)

Current price for silver at $25.91 (call it $26) divided by (at best) 4 hours = $6/hour (let alone my copper, electric, gas, etc.) --- & then expect to pay the client a percent back on that silver ????

Lets just say the client has this expectation that he should get 80% silver back

$26 X .2 (my supposed %) = $5.20 divided by 4 hours (at best) = $1.30 (call it $1 after copper, electric, gas, etc.)

Sorry - but I don't work for a dollar per hour (in order to account for the silver "in this case") --- If I did - I would loose most if not all my "profit" made on accounting to client for the gold in this batch & would SOON be out of business

Something that stuck in my head when I read Hokes book - she said - "the silver - if worth while"

Sorry - but - in the above case - I am not ripping the client off by not paying him on the silver - the fact of the matter is - recovering that silver isn't even paying me - let alone paying the client

At best - that silver is only "helping" to covering "overhead" I have to be set up for refining in the first place --- so that I can pay out a fair price on the "target" metal

Something that stuck in my head when I read Hokes book - she said - "the silver - IF worth while" !!!

The above holds true when dealing with dore metal that has predominant metal(s) but also has LOW percentage of other metal(s)

For what it's worth

Kurt

 

[orvi]

Per the bold print - I have to disagree (at least to a point)

As we know - when we start working with alloys that contain 2 or more metals we need to go through more steps/processes to get a separation of those metals

Therefore - the percentages of each of the metals needs to be high enough to cover the cost of separating each metal

Example - say someone sends me a 1 or 2 kilo batch of say gold filled &/or gold plated jewelry to process

In that 1 - 2 kilo batch there is likely to be "some" GF or GP on silver (this is of course being processed for the gold)

So - in step 1 we put the GF/GP in nitric to dissolve the base metals (& "maybe" some silver) in order to get our gold foils

Step 2 - wash all the nitric leach out of the foils so we can move to AR on the gold foils - the gold being what the clients is going to be paid out on (so that is a no brainer - the client gets there percentage - I - as the refiner get my percentage) --- in other words - the steps in the refining "for the gold" are all part of the percentage agreement between client/refiner - which includes step 1

However - in this case - step1 is/was part of the process of going for the gold & MOSTLY a step to remove base metals

It just happens - that in that step - you "may" (or not) end up dissolving "some" silver

If - in the event you dissolved "some" silver in step 1 - you now have to do additional steps to recover that silver

Let say (for the sake of putting it in perspective) that in this batch we dissolved 1ozt silver

The "additional" steps I need to go through to recover that 1 ozt silver (keeping in mind that this needs to be done on "the batch" if you are going to "account" for it)------------

Step 1 - cement the silver from the nitric leach (in which I am using up some of my "personal" copper as will as the time for this step)

Step 2 - washing the chem out of silver cement - more time

step 3 - dry the cement - more time plus electric to run the hot plate

Step 4 - melt the dried cement - more time & torch gas

Bare minimum time to get this done = 4 hours (likely ALL DAY - though you can do other things between steps)

Current price for silver at $25.91 (call it $26) divided by (at best) 4 hours = $6/hour (let alone my copper, electric, gas, etc.) --- & then expect to pay the client a percent back on that silver ????

Lets just say the client has this expectation that he should get 80% silver back

$26 X .2 (my supposed %) = $5.20 divided by 4 hours (at best) = $1.30 (call it $1 after copper, electric, gas, etc.)

Sorry - but I don't work for a dollar per hour (in order to account for the silver "in this case") --- If I did - I would loose most if not all my "profit" made on accounting to client for the gold in this batch & would SOON be out of business

Something that stuck in my head when I read Hokes book - she said - "the silver - if worth while"

Sorry - but - in the above case - I am not ripping the client off by not paying him on the silver - the fact of the matter is - recovering that silver isn't even paying me - let alone paying the client

At best - that silver is only "helping" to covering "overhead" I have to be set up for refining in the first place --- so that I can pay out a fair price on the "target" metal

Something that stuck in my head when I read Hokes book - she said - "the silver - IF worth while" !!!

The above holds true when dealing with dore metal that has predominant metal(s) but also has LOW percentage of other metal(s)

For what it's worth

Kurt

With last sell, PGMs were cemented and melted (since no sucess with good separation in our hands). 55% Pd 40% Pt 2% Rh. PdPt were paid allright, but no payment for Rh. I accept that it could be difficult to get it out of the mixture, but when it comes to actual refining (through all the persons in the ladder of "middlemans" who rarely know anything about refining here), the Rh will be extracted anyway - no one serious and established refinery will throw away Rh. Maybe dispersed as unleachable traces in vast volume of ceramic or oxide matrix, but not in metal bar form.
In 1 kg of the aforementioned melt, Rh value accounts for more than 12 000 USD. No way that it wouldn´t be economical to extract it.
I will live happily with 30-40% offer on Rh (can swallow that "it´s a low content, can´t pay more" excuse), but saying that I won´t pay you on that is straight rip-off.
On the other hand, these are the terms offered. We could decline them any time but that does not change my mind.

Your example with silver is certainly legit, and silver can be pain to extract and monetize. Volume is the key.

 

[Justincase]

In 1 kg of the aforementioned melt, Rh value accounts for more than 12 000 USD. No way that it wouldn´t be economical to extract it.

$12,000 an oz, $617,294.33 a kilo they are making a killing.

 

[shintoc]

Yep, interesting how this secrecy and practically divided monopoly evolved around PGMs. Why not the other metals.

That was why I invested so much time and effort to elaborate the PdPtRh "separation - recovery" method with acceptable losses. And failed miserably, to be honest. Then stuck with health issues, so I am out for several months and cannot perform experiments on PGMs. And I was relatively close to tuning the NH4Cl precipitation that way it do not drag too much Rh with it. That was the annoying step, so much Rh was trapped in the precipitates of ammonium platinate (nearly 40 % sometimes, from that 1-2% starting Rh content). Later steps were pretty much straightforward - cementing the PdRh remaining solution on zinc, boiling the precipitates with water to get rid of chlorides (practically) completely (AgNO3 test pass) and then digesting the cement with HNO3. Filter palladium nitrate and get enriched Rh cement fraction.

If I was ever to accomplish the recovery of more than 50% of the contained Rh to some enriched fraction, it will go straight here to the forum, for free and for anyone.

Always willing to share information as well. We spent the last 10 months upgrading our smelting facility, and equipment for Elctroplating and Induction Furnaces.
Hope the above turns out well, if needed, PM me directly.