My honeycomb is in the process...

[dmarth10]

Hey guys,
I currently have about .25 lbs of honeycomb in a bowl in AR solution. The solution is even with the top of the pile of broken honeycomb. Can anyone recomend a timeframe until I should go to step to, the filtering? Also, I was seeing a bunch of tiny silvery specs floating around the bowl, anyone know what that is?

Thanks
David

 

[lazersteve]

David,

You should transfer the mix into a tall pyrex beaker or coffee pot and apply some heat (60-100C) for minimum of 2 hours with continuous stirring. Cover the reaction with a watch glass or small ceramic saucer to keep the solution from evaporating. A second reaction with fresh AR should be performed to insure you have extracted all the PGMs.

The small amount of honeycomb will not yield very much in the way of PGMs, especially if the cat was an aftermarket type.

The silver specks could be anything from contamination to particles of honeycomb.


Steve

 

[dmarth10]

Great,
Thanks steve, you dont think letting the solution with honeycomb sitting outside in 65 degrees f is going to screw anything up if I continue with your suggestions do you?

 

[lazersteve]

I don't any reason why it would unless its been out there for several weeks, then the AR may be much less reactive.

Steve

 

[dmarth10]

Ok,
So last night was my first attempt at recovering pgms from catalyst with AR. However, I did encounter a problem. My problem was when adding Zn powder to precipitate pgms the first time, I couldn't get the solution to turn clear with the gray suspension in it. So I added more, then more, and more in little increments. Since Zn additions didn't do what I expected (though it did lighten up the orange color), I did add a few ml of hcl. Nothing... So I filtered anyway and did get a tiny amount of black powdery material. I dont think its Zn since it would have reacted with the AR. It was not dirt because I did filter several times before the Zn additions. I do believe it was a little of the pgms. I dont understand why the Zn didn't change the color to clear.



David

 

[lazersteve]

David,

Did you raise the pH up to 3-5 with soda ash before you added the Zinc?

How much material did you process and how much AR did you use?

Was the material from an aftermarket cat or one of the higher grade foreign cats?

Steve

 

[dmarth10]

The pH was at 5 and I was processing small scale about .25 lbs. The converter was a large gm. The are equal to a small foreign converter. Im not sure if its because I did it on a small scale or what. Im building a fume hood and getting respiratory gear and then trying again. The fumes were way more that I had planned on. Ill post my next results hopefully by tuesday.

Ps. I tried to post pictures but it said pictures have to be 600x800 pixels. Can someone tell me how to do that?

 

[Harold_V]

I tried to post pictures but it said pictures have to be 600x800 pixels. Can someone tell me how to do that?

That would be 800 pixels in width, and 600 pixels in height. That's to prevent text from being spread. Larger pictures that display force the text off the sides of monitors, which is very aggravating for the reader.

You can easily resize pictures with any photo program. If you don't have one, you might consider downloading Irfanview. It's free, and very good.

http://www.irfanview.com/

Harold

edit: removed a misplaced letter. No change in content otherwise.

 

[dmarth10]

Thanks ill give it a try when I get a chance. Try to get some pics up for you guys to see whats going on.