Metal Scavengers

[Smopex]

Dear Forum Members,

We are Scavenging Technologies, a business unit of Johnson Matthey PGM Refining. We look forward to introducing our metal scavenging range of Smopex, QuadraPure and QuadraSil to you all.

Regards
The Scavenging Technologies Team

 

[NobleMetalWorks]

Dear Forum Members,

We are Scavenging Technologies, a business unit of Johnson Matthey PGM Refining. We look forward to introducing our metal scavenging range of Smopex, QuadraPure and QuadraSil to you all.

Regards
The Scavenging Technologies Team

I personally think the technology is amazing, and the materials sound wonderful. I was recently looking into Smopex myself. However, once I figured out how this entire process works, I decided that this type of scavenging material, although seemingly amazing, would not be a smart business move considering that the material has to be shipped back to Johnston Matthey to be processed for it's precious metals. Oh I understand Johnston Matthey can recommend and advise on this process if carried out externally, but this is what is stated on the website:

However, we recommend that the loaded Smopex be returned to us for processing in our dedicated pyrolysis plant. Fuming is therefore the recommended method for recovery of precious metals from Smopex fibres.

Thank You

Scott

 

[Smopex]

We do indeed recommend that our spent scavengers whether it be Smopex, QuadraPure or QuadraSil be returned to one of our refineries for processing. This is for a number of reasons:

1. JM has much experience in the burning of pgm loaded materials, whether it’s Pd/C, autocat residues or Smopex etc. We have specific burning profiles and analytical expertise to ensure the maximum return on the pgms from the residues.

2. Secondly, many of our customers have a closed metal loop. By that we mean that they buy the pgm compound or catalyst from JM, then once spent prefer to return it to us for refininf and metal credit or supply of fresh pgm material. They therefore only have to deal with a single company rather than many third parties. This of course is optional, but many prefer this situation.

3. We are also able to offer shipping advice for this class of materials, a topic that is becoming increasingly complicated and time consuming for shippers.
Of course you could send material directly to Johnson Matthey, or any other precious metal refiner directly. What we are offering using metal scavengers is the opportunity to recover low levels of pgms from solutions that may not be attractive for many refiners For example, if you have 10 tonnes an effluent containing 50ppm gold, this volume of low grade material is impractical to ship to a refiner and alongside the shipping and treatment charges would often out way the value of the Au. You could dispose of it, chemically treat it or use the simpler option of a metal scavenger. Once the gold has been recovered using the scavenger, you send the residue for refining. We work very closely with our customers to ensure the most accurate evaluation and analytical procedures are used. In addition we allow customers to witness or have an independent witness present during this process.

We hope to have answered your questions and address your concerns.

Regards
Scavenging Technologies

 

[Palladium]

Very professional and posted in the right sexton also. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Gratilla]

Would Smopex be a viable alternative to activated carbon/charcoal in commercial cyanide leaching?

 

[Smopex]

Dear Gratilla

Thank for your post!

It is difficult for us to provide a direct answer to how viable an alternative our scavengers would be with the current knowledge available to us. To comment on the overall viability we would need further information on the elution characteristics and lifecycle analysis of the scavengers alongside the processing parameters and resulting operational costs.

What we can say is that several of our Smopex fibres are able to recover gold from hydrocyanic acid solution from the plating and mining industries with a recovery rate of up to 100%. In addition the loading of metal per kg of scavenger far outweighs those achievable with carbon. This is because the fibres contain functionality specifically designed for the recovery of pgms, and these functional groups are very easily accessable as they’re located on the surface of the fibre. As a consequence a much lower mass of material required for the metal recovery.

We would be very happy to discuss this with you further.

Regards
Scavenging Technologies

 

[Gratilla]

Thanks. A good place to start would be cost:

1. How much does Smopex cost (per kg)?
2. How much Smopex would be required per kg of activated carbon? [You mention a significant difference in loading.]
3. Can Smopex be used in pulp or would a separate circuit be necessary? [We - and all the other operators in this area that I am aware of - use CIP (Carbon In Pulp).]
4. Can Smopex be fired in the same way as carbon? Or would it be necessary to send it away for incineration?

If we're still in the ballpark from these rough figures, we could take a stab at the kind of accuracy you'd like.

 

[RGJohn]

Dear Forum Members,

We are Scavenging Technologies, a business unit of Johnson Matthey PGM Refining. We look forward to introducing our metal scavenging range of Smopex, QuadraPure and QuadraSil to you all.

Regards
The Scavenging Technologies Team

Thank you and welcome to the forum.
-----
I have been unable to penetrate the labrynith of your website. I wish to purchase a "Smopex Sample Kit" such as shown there. How much does it cost, to where do I send the check, and what are the differences amoung the ten samples? I don't (as yet) require 'tonnage' quantities but just a dab to determine if I have any use for your product.
Thanks in advance,
John

 

[Gratilla]

John, click on the "Scavenging Technologies" link and follow with a click on "How to buy" on the Quick Links list (left side of page). There are a number of email addresses for buy/quote options including "Smopex Sample Kits".

No "Products" link and a PayPal option though. <sigh>

Let us know if you ever get a kit and what you think of it. TQ.

 

[Smopex]

Thanks. A good place to start would be cost:

1. How much does Smopex cost (per kg)?
2. How much Smopex would be required per kg of activated carbon? [You mention a significant difference in loading.]
3. Can Smopex be used in pulp or would a separate circuit be necessary? [We - and all the other operators in this area that I am aware of - use CIP (Carbon In Pulp).]
4. Can Smopex be fired in the same way as carbon? Or would it be necessary to send it away for incineration?

If we're still in the ballpark from these rough figures, we could take a stab at the kind of accuracy you'd like.

Dear Gratilla,

We're happy to address your questions, thank you.

1. How much does Smopex cost (per kg)?

As with all of our products the individual scavenger price is very much impacted by the chemical functional group required. An indicative range for recovery applications is from $60 / kg to $200 / kg. While this may seem very expensive compared to carbon, you need to take into account the kinetics and metal loading on the fibre compared to carbon to get a true picture of the overall value.

2. How much Smopex would be required per kg of activated carbon? [You mention a significant difference in loading.]

We have seen metal loadings onto Smopex up to 20w/w% (200g of Au per 1 kg of scavenger on a dry weight basis). Since all material is different, we suggest running some trials to determine the optimal loading for your system.

3. Can Smopex be used in pulp or would a separate circuit be necessary? [We - and all the other operators in this area that I am aware of - use CIP (Carbon In Pulp).]

Smopex can be used in pulp however depending on the particle size of your material, separation and efficiency may be affected. We suggest filtering and running the Smopex in the clean filtrate.

4. Can Smopex be fired in the same way as carbon? Or would it be necessary to send it away for incineration?

Standard Smopex typically needs to be ashed in the normal ignition/burning./roasting method to recover the gold. Once reduced, it can be dissolved for further recovery. Loaded fibres can also be returned to the manufacturer for recovery.

We hope we have answered your questions satisfactorily, we're happy to discuss further.

Regards
Scavenging Technologies

 

[Smopex]

Dear Forum Members,

We are Scavenging Technologies, a business unit of Johnson Matthey PGM Refining. We look forward to introducing our metal scavenging range of Smopex, QuadraPure and QuadraSil to you all.

Regards
The Scavenging Technologies Team

Thank you and welcome to the forum.
-----
I have been unable to penetrate the labrynith of your website. I wish to purchase a "Smopex Sample Kit" such as shown there. How much does it cost, to where do I send the check, and what are the differences amoung the ten samples? I don't (as yet) require 'tonnage' quantities but just a dab to determine if I have any use for your product.
Thanks in advance,
John

Dear John,

Thank you for your feedback. We are in the process of redesigning our website and we hope that users will find it interesting, useful and much easier to navigate!

Johnson Matthey’s Smopex Refining Kit contains all the fibres required to treat a whole range of refining processes based on experience from Johnson Matthey’s own pgm refinery as well as customers worldwide. Each fibre is suitable for a number of pgm species and applications. Assuming you’re interested in the Refining Kit, the price of this is $400. Payment can be made through our regional offices who will contact you when an order is placed. Additionally we are investigating adding the possibility of using Paypal as a payment option directly from the website.

This kit contains 10g* of the following scavengers:
Smopex 103
Smopex 105*
Smopex 112
Smopex 269
Smopex 500*
Co-Smopex50
QuadraPure TU
QuadraPure DMA

* 20g supplied as 2 x 10g

We also supply a scavenger screening guide and technical support as necessary. If you would like to order a kit please contact us directly at [email protected] and we will be happy to arrange.

Best regards
Scavenging Technologies

 

[nickvc]

Smopex, Scaveging Technologies, I like the whole idea behind your product and can see uses for it by many here on the forum.
I too have been on your site and was left wanting further information especially regarding cost and which of your products would be suited to my needs and probably by extension to many of the members here.
To help all the members and by extension your company perhaps you could give some more specific details. Most of the members are working on e scrap and fewer working with carat scrap and within these materials we nearly all encounter PGMs as well as gold and silver and most members would be happy to be able to recover more than at present from their solutions. The dissolution of the metals is usually through nitric acid, aqua regia or hydrochloric and sodium hypochlorite and the gold is precipitated using smb or ferrous sulphate commonly and occasionally oxalic acid or ascorbic acid, the silver is recovered by cementation from nitric solutions or as a chloride from the others. The PGMs are then left in the solution which again commonly are recovered by cementation with copper.
My questions would be what products, given those parameters, would you suggest, how much, considering we are mostly small refiners, of your product would we need and how much would it cost and finally how exactly would we utilise your products in our solution streams to achieve the optimum results.
The point I'm trying to make is the membership is pretty knowlegable concerning precious metals, it's recovery, refining and the chemistry behind it all so if you hope to do business with the members I think a more open disclosure of your products and applications would help you and the members.
I'm not asking for proprietary information and I know your part of a very large company with refining a very large part of it, I worked for JM also, but we need more details to be able to make a decision if this product range can be a goid addition to our recovery stream and more importantly for many is it economically viable.
Many thanks for your time and I look forward to reading more about your products as they seem very interesting to me personally and by extension probably the whole membership of the forum.

 

[kurt]

I have been following this thread with some interest & I can't help but wonder if this is nothing more then a cementing process --- a fiber material loaded with metals higher on the reactive series to cement the PMs out of solution which are then collected on the fibers which are then incinerated to recover the PMs.

I could of course be wrong --- but wouldn't cementing with copper,iron or zinc (all to be found cheap as scrap) do the same job :?:

Kurt

 

[Lou]

No, the fibers are functionalized with different organic groups that possess varying degrees of affinity for a given metal.

I have tested and used Smopex and it does work. I will attach some photos.

 

[Smopex]

I have been following this thread with some interest & I can't help but wonder if this is nothing more then a cementing process --- a fiber material loaded with metals higher on the reactive series to cement the PMs out of solution which are then collected on the fibers which are then incinerated to recover the PMs.

I could of course be wrong --- but wouldn't cementing with copper,iron or zinc (all to be found cheap as scrap) do the same job :?:

Kurt

Dear Kurt,

We appreciate your post! As highlighted by Lou, Smopex fibres are functionalised with various organic chemical groups, each has been selected due to its affinity to precious metal compounds. Here's the Smopex range and the individual functional groups of each:

The binding mechanism of the metal to the fibre depends on the functionality, but is either by ion exchange or chelation. We hope that helps.

Regards
The Scavenging Technologies Team

 

[Smopex]

No, the fibers are functionalized with different organic groups that possess varying degrees of affinity for a given metal.

I have tested and used Smopex and it does work. I will attach some photos.

Dear Lou

We're very pleased to hear you've had a successful experience with Smopex! I'm sure we all look forward to hearing more about your tests and seeing the photos.

Regards
The ST Team

 

[Gratilla]

OK, so it works. But it ain't cheap.

What I would like to see now are cost (and process) comparisons between the flavour of the month (ie Smopex) and:

a) activated charcoal and
b) solvent extraction

 

[nickvc]

Just some more detail as I requested would be good so the members can see the advantages or disadvantages of the products and how we could all use it in our waste streams.

 

[kurt]

Lou, Sompex - Thank you for the replies - they answer the first part of my question which is how sompex works - but is it any more effective in recovering (scavenging) the PMs from low grade (acidic) solutions then the age old process of cementing with a metal higher on the reactive series (copper, iron or zinc)

Sompex - My real question here is - you are trying to sell a product used to recover (scavenge) the PMs from low grade (low level) solutions --- as a refiner - recovering these metals has to be to my advantage - meaning I need to see a profit in the end &/or cut the cost of dealing with waste --- I can do so (at least to a point) with the age old process of cementing with a metal higher on the reactivity series & I can do this for next to nothing as I can get these metals as scrap

Another words - trying to simply sell me a product that works - is not going to get me to buy it - what you need to sell me on - is that buying your product is to the advantage of my bottom line profit

You want me to change from my current methods of recovery to using your product but you are not giving me a bottom line reason for doing so - you are simply saying you have a product that works.

I certainly have an interest in buying any product that is going to improve my bottom line --- that is what you need to sell me on.

Kurt

 

[Lou]

The real advantage is in mitigating the amount of zinc or aluminum you need to use.

When you have 3500 L at 215 ppm Pt, that's a ton (literally) of solution to filter.

Smopex is a functionalized polypropylene chop fiber. Filters easy as pie and is (IMHO) easier to incinerate cleanly than say Purolite's S920 thiouronium (which you can get about 22-25 t oz Pt/cubic foot, which is $950/cubic foot from Sirfilco). The IX resins are almost all macroporous crosslinked polystyrene, which incinerates with a HORRID smell. Most loading I've seen on the Smopex is 11% PGE. Kinetically, it's probably the same as resin, as Smopex is used 60-80C.

My main liking for the fiber is ease of handling, good visual indication, clean burn (best to reduce first), and the breadth of moieties available for all the PGMs. Disadvantage is the same as any method, you need ICP and a darn good analyst to deal with the base metal matrix interference. On the cheap, that's what stannous chloride is for!