No I mean it’s about the temperature achieved. Theoretically, with enough concentrated rays of light, one can achieve a temperature hot enough to vaporize platinum at its focal point.
That’s not productive for what we do here. But, I can cut out the artificial energy required for melting, by using a Mylar-coated convex shape (this only works for small amounts of high value metals, it’s not feasible for iron or steel).
From these three statements alone I realize you will go far in the refining world.
How can AI determine the amount of PM's in a catalytic converter that has been used for an unspecified amount of time or miles? Only sampling and analytical chemistry can give you these answers.
I think not. She wrote this book for jewelers and it was written years before catalytic converters existed. Jewelry is a concentrated form of scrap and the easiest for a small jeweler to process with the proper methods, which she outlines in the book. Catalytic converters are not, by any means, a high concentration of metals nor is it easy to quantify analytically. The scrap Hoke speaks of is tested on the stone with acids. Try that with a converter.
AI can determine the initial quantity of metals in the converter, so what the manufacturer put into it. I get that may change over the life of the converter, but to what degree?
For example, the high-grade converters of a diesel 2014 F-250 are estimated to have 7 grams of platinum, 7 grams of palladium, and 2 grams of rhodium.
The best mixers in Chicago are paying around $500 for that converter right now (and it’s worth over $750 alone in precious metals excluding iridium)
Yet when Rhodium was around $27,000 an oz and palladium around $2,000, the mixers in Chicago only were paying around $1,000 for that exact same converter. Meanwhile, the precious metal content was spot valued close to $3,000.
I do understand that the actual amount of PGMs that are present in the converter will vary. So long term, homogenizing the batch and pinpointing the content with whatever assay is appropriate, will be the way to go.
I want to be able to collect a large group, hedge them in the short term using the futures market, and recover every bit I can. One of the large barriers to this method is the collection of 1,000 lbs at once. That in itself presents a great risk, because there are a multitude of thieves out there. I’ve had converters stolen before, off of vehicles that I hadn’t even processed yet. Now imagine stacking up 500 of them, and the risks that poses.
And hey, one of Hoke’s main influences for writing the book, was because there were several jewelers without knowledge to refine their scrap, and only a few companies to process that scrap. There’s a certain amount of “power to the little guy” tied up in the spirit of her writings. Now days and going forward, most of the PGMs in industrial materials are absolutely going to be produced at the nanoscale. Not in jewelry, but think semiconductors, how are they able to increase memory and efficiency? By decreasing the particle size of the materials used. Therefore, going forward, more and more sources of PGMs will have smaller particles of PGMs, and the ability to process them efficiently will be a key skill in the trade.
