PGM red solution/filter full of gel

[artart47]

Hi everyone!
Just wondering if anyone has run into this, and what it is? I had six honeycombs that came out of three catalytic converters. Not having any time to do refining. I placed the material in a 5gal bucket covered them in a 50/50 mix 32%HCl/distilled H2O kept adding chlorox alittle at a time each day or two and shook the contents.
After about thirty days it sat with no further additions of chlorox for about another month, and I continued shacking it every day or so. The other day I started filtering it. I receive a red solution but the filter paper loads up with quite a bit of a greanish grey goo. I was just wondering where to goo/gel came from? My first thought is to just keep the filters and goo, dry it and incinerate. save it for later.
I got much more studying on this subject.
artrart47

 

[Lou]

Probably silicic acid.

 

[kurtak]

Art

good to see you got back on the forum after the trouble with your password (I assume Harold was able to help you with that problem now that Noxx has given him the go ahead to reset passwords)

concerning the goo just run some rinse water through it 3 or 4 times (not a lot - just a little each time to wash out any solution tied up in it) or till your rinse shows little to no color - add the rinse to your main solution & then evaporate it about the amount of the rinse water that was added --- the evaporation will help with a couple things - it will reduce your waste & it will make for a better PGM drop when you add your zinc (its been my experience that if the solution is to dilute the PGMs cement out as finer particles that can be hard to filter - as in tending to go through the filter)

There shouldn't be any values in the goo if you get the solution rinsed out of it

if you have any questions call me

Kurt

 

[artart47]

Hey, Thanks for the responses guys!
Lou; I started looking up silicic acid, found an old dr. poe thread where they were talking about weak acids working on silicates etc... per-haps my solution did some leaching of the ceramic of the honeycomb. Goona see what I can learn about it. Interesting!

Kurtak; Thanks for everything! I'll follow your advise. I'll have a few filters to rinse, I recovered about 1400ml. and have two coffee filters to rinse.
Great to be back!
Later! artart

 

[kadriver]

Get a little of the green stuff and see if it will dissolve in a few drops of dilute HCl in a spot plate.

Then do a test with stannous. It might be some platinum salt.

I had some of this green salt form while evaporating and it was full of platinum!

kadriver

 

[artart47]

Hi and thanks Kadriver!
I'll test it. The pics show about 1400ml of filtrate and that gave two filter papers of gel. I have about another 1 1/2-2gals. to filter. It'll take me a while cuz of working out of town, but I'll post the results when I get home.
Thanks ! artart47