***** The Platinumill Exposed and on Trial *****
- Thread starter hvyshakes1
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loco
Well-known member
at 500 cats that should put you over the 1000lb mark easily...probably than that. a smelter should be interested in them at that point.
also I'm sure this is understood but if anyone finds a means of handling converter material for ovious profit could you point some of us in the right direction?
also as far as the platinumill is concerned check out his guest book now? appears he's removed negative comments from it, or ones he doesn't like.
-Rich
also I'm sure this is understood but if anyone finds a means of handling converter material for ovious profit could you point some of us in the right direction?
also as far as the platinumill is concerned check out his guest book now? appears he's removed negative comments from it, or ones he doesn't like.
-Rich
loco
Well-known member
man since my post which wasn't slamming him on his guest book I have recieved 2 contacts from another guy that isn't happy with the machine. Oh and speaking of comments on his guest book anything he doesn't like has been removed. keeps things looking cleaner I guess. by the way the other guy who actually bought his machine from rob/platinumill says he only paid 6400 for it. figured hvyshakes would like that.
spoke to someone at actionmining today and they say they have gotten a few calls in regaurds to folks who have bought the "mill" and had issues looking for support since platinumill hasn't been. Sad to say but it sounds like they are holding strong (not that I blame them) in not supporting or helping those who bought the platinumill. As it's not their machine/product. LOL well not directly.
spoke to someone at actionmining today and they say they have gotten a few calls in regaurds to folks who have bought the "mill" and had issues looking for support since platinumill hasn't been. Sad to say but it sounds like they are holding strong (not that I blame them) in not supporting or helping those who bought the platinumill. As it's not their machine/product. LOL well not directly.
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goldsilverpro said:
That was the result I experienced when I messed with some ceramic pellets many years ago. I extracted values with AR, but the solution was not a pleasure to filter. I concluded, early on, that it wasn't worth my time to mess with cats, although there's no doubt that they are worth running today. Not many were available back when I tried. My timing was somewhat premature.
Harold
Rob,
Very kind of you to share your info with us. Have you been able to secure a buyer for this (sludge) material? I've had a hard time finding someone to agree to accept it, by description alone. Of course, it is a little harder to sell something that your not holding in your hand yet. The last company I emailed ... Specialty Metals, is familar with leach resins but, they referred to leach resins made by Dow and Rohm Haas. They say those leach resins contain 12% metallic content on average. I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Since I still do not know how much "sludge" the process captures per pound, I have no way to know if 12% of that amount could be profitable. I'd love to know how much sludge material (on average)you should be collecting per pound of crushed substrate.
Mark
Very kind of you to share your info with us. Have you been able to secure a buyer for this (sludge) material? I've had a hard time finding someone to agree to accept it, by description alone. Of course, it is a little harder to sell something that your not holding in your hand yet. The last company I emailed ... Specialty Metals, is familar with leach resins but, they referred to leach resins made by Dow and Rohm Haas. They say those leach resins contain 12% metallic content on average. I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Since I still do not know how much "sludge" the process captures per pound, I have no way to know if 12% of that amount could be profitable. I'd love to know how much sludge material (on average)you should be collecting per pound of crushed substrate.
Mark
loco
Well-known member
from what I was told by another gent was Dow's resin is SR-3 for cat material, as he said that is what he uses. And maybe someone with a bit more knowledge that I would consider contacting rocky ledge mining company and telling me what you think of thier process. The only site I could find on him was an older tripod site he said his wife toyed with before that had an actual site made up, and then was taken down when he was injured.
Froggy,
You recently stated either here or on another post that you recently sold some material to a refiner. It won't bother me if you tell me it's none of my business but uh,... I was wondering about what the average per lb. would return?
You recently stated either here or on another post that you recently sold some material to a refiner. It won't bother me if you tell me it's none of my business but uh,... I was wondering about what the average per lb. would return?
shadybear
Well-known member
I love hearing about these cats-this is something every little guy could make a living with if it could be figured out.
---So can I start at the beginning--
Is it better to crush or just keep the honeycomb solid
Does roasting help? Why?
Does roasting mess up the palladium
Is 120 degrees the required temp for AR leaching
How long does it need to be at this temp for all PGM's to leach fully?
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Maybe we can group together or something and get the experts some combs to experiment with and let us know.
I know I can sell a GM double cat for $115. to the scrapper
he wouldn't pay that if he wasn't making money from it
---So can I start at the beginning--
Is it better to crush or just keep the honeycomb solid
Does roasting help? Why?
Does roasting mess up the palladium
Is 120 degrees the required temp for AR leaching
How long does it need to be at this temp for all PGM's to leach fully?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe we can group together or something and get the experts some combs to experiment with and let us know.
I know I can sell a GM double cat for $115. to the scrapper
he wouldn't pay that if he wasn't making money from it
shadybear
Well-known member
Here are some thoughts I had about cats.
you have The PGM's, the ceramic, organic build-up and gamma alumina
wash coat in a used converter.
So if you crush this and screen to 200 mesh would there be a way to make a water based solution with specific gravity of say 4 or 5 and do a float seperation.
Or if crushed and screened to 200 mesh would a wave table seperate the PGM's. Like the ones actionmining has that will seperate flour gold from black sand at 200 mesh, that seems like a much tighter seperation than ceramic and PGM's
you have The PGM's, the ceramic, organic build-up and gamma alumina
wash coat in a used converter.
So if you crush this and screen to 200 mesh would there be a way to make a water based solution with specific gravity of say 4 or 5 and do a float seperation.
Or if crushed and screened to 200 mesh would a wave table seperate the PGM's. Like the ones actionmining has that will seperate flour gold from black sand at 200 mesh, that seems like a much tighter seperation than ceramic and PGM's
I crush the converter honeycomb once it has been removed from its casing. Then it can be roasted to remove any carbon.
Platinum does not oxidize in air at any temperature, but the palladium will oxidize to a green-black solid. This does not ruin it. The oxide can be difficult to dissolve, but it will dissolve just fine.
Most industrial processes where they go after the PGMs from converters as a primary focus usually use a mixture of relatively concentrated sulfuric with dilute hydrochloric. This dissolves away the substrate and leaves the PGM residues as a sludge on the bottom. That's then recovered with AR.
It is important to note that you should not use concentrated acids to dissolve away the substrate, because the HCl can be oxidized to chlorine by the hot sulfuric acid...and that will dissolve the palladium. Not good. So keep everything around 4M H+ if not less.
Platinum does not oxidize in air at any temperature, but the palladium will oxidize to a green-black solid. This does not ruin it. The oxide can be difficult to dissolve, but it will dissolve just fine.
Most industrial processes where they go after the PGMs from converters as a primary focus usually use a mixture of relatively concentrated sulfuric with dilute hydrochloric. This dissolves away the substrate and leaves the PGM residues as a sludge on the bottom. That's then recovered with AR.
It is important to note that you should not use concentrated acids to dissolve away the substrate, because the HCl can be oxidized to chlorine by the hot sulfuric acid...and that will dissolve the palladium. Not good. So keep everything around 4M H+ if not less.
shadybear
Well-known member
So you say use sulfuric and hydrocloric acid, isnt that nitric acid
Nope, not at all.
Nitric acid is a strong oxidizing acid of the formula HNO3, sulfuric aka H2SO4 is a strong acid too, but much less oxidizing. HCl is a strong binary acid, but it is not oxidizing so to speak.
What I mean by strong acid is the way in which the acid ionizes in water. The more H+ is formed (what makes an acid an acid in aqueous conditions) the stronger it is.
Hope that helps.
Nitric acid is a strong oxidizing acid of the formula HNO3, sulfuric aka H2SO4 is a strong acid too, but much less oxidizing. HCl is a strong binary acid, but it is not oxidizing so to speak.
What I mean by strong acid is the way in which the acid ionizes in water. The more H+ is formed (what makes an acid an acid in aqueous conditions) the stronger it is.
Hope that helps.
From the book by Mr. Rao that I posted about in the books subforum
I follow steps 1-3 pretty well, but in step four I am confused. At this point shouldn't the PGMs be in the sludge like Lou has said? As far as I know Pt, Pd, and Rh arn't attacked by dillute sulfuric. I know rhodium will dissolve in concentrated sulfuric, and maybe some palladium oxide dissolves in the sulfuric? Maybe this would explain the fancy precipitation at 4 - enough dissolved values to justify a precipitation. Any body know?
.
I follow steps 1-3 pretty well, but in step four I am confused. At this point shouldn't the PGMs be in the sludge like Lou has said? As far as I know Pt, Pd, and Rh arn't attacked by dillute sulfuric. I know rhodium will dissolve in concentrated sulfuric, and maybe some palladium oxide dissolves in the sulfuric? Maybe this would explain the fancy precipitation at 4 - enough dissolved values to justify a precipitation. Any body know?
Skippy,
I have successfully dissolved PGMs from cats using 60% Sulfuric and table salt.
I have no knowledge of what Mr. Roa's book is referring to, but it reads like when Tellurium is present the PGMs tend to go into solution as well (?).
The part at the end (step 10) looks like it's from a patent I've recently seen on PGM recovery from catalysts. :?:
Here's the link:
Platinum from Catalysts
Steve
I have successfully dissolved PGMs from cats using 60% Sulfuric and table salt.
I have no knowledge of what Mr. Roa's book is referring to, but it reads like when Tellurium is present the PGMs tend to go into solution as well (?).
The part at the end (step 10) looks like it's from a patent I've recently seen on PGM recovery from catalysts. :?:
Here's the link:
Platinum from Catalysts
Steve
shadybear
Well-known member
So is there a way to make a water solution of 4 specific gravity.
Anyone ever do that
Anyone ever use mechinacal seperation on cats
Anyone ever do that
Anyone ever use mechinacal seperation on cats
Yes, Lazersteve it is kind of mysterious, isn't it. Maybe I'll do some research on Tellurium in this sort of situation and report back.
Another thing, does the cordierite stay mostly intact after stripping the alumina? In the Rao book he calls it the insoluble substrate method, I assume because the alumina dissolves easier than the cordierite. Is this correct?
Another thing, does the cordierite stay mostly intact after stripping the alumina? In the Rao book he calls it the insoluble substrate method, I assume because the alumina dissolves easier than the cordierite. Is this correct?
Skippy,
Here's a sample of some cat beads treated by two different extraction methods.
The top photo is of the beads after they are extracted once with boiling dilute AR.
[img:574:1228]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/cat_methods.jpg[/img]
The lower photo is the same batch of beads from the top photo treated a second time with the sulfuric/chloride method.
Pay particular attention to the color, size, and texture of the beads. Notice that they are completely white after the sulfuric treatment and considerablly more decayed. The top beads still contian a large portion of the Pt and Rh due to the fact that the dilute AR did not remove these PGMs effectively.
I have confirmed this by boiling a small batch of the beads in AR and producing Pt. The beads still maintained their color and size after a second boil in concentrated AR. This leads me to believe the sulfuric extraction process is better than the AR method for this type of material.
I will perform more tests on the honeycomb material soon.
Steve
Here's a sample of some cat beads treated by two different extraction methods.
The top photo is of the beads after they are extracted once with boiling dilute AR.
[img:574:1228]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/cat_methods.jpg[/img]
The lower photo is the same batch of beads from the top photo treated a second time with the sulfuric/chloride method.
Pay particular attention to the color, size, and texture of the beads. Notice that they are completely white after the sulfuric treatment and considerablly more decayed. The top beads still contian a large portion of the Pt and Rh due to the fact that the dilute AR did not remove these PGMs effectively.
I have confirmed this by boiling a small batch of the beads in AR and producing Pt. The beads still maintained their color and size after a second boil in concentrated AR. This leads me to believe the sulfuric extraction process is better than the AR method for this type of material.
I will perform more tests on the honeycomb material soon.
Steve
shadybear said:
Sure there are ways. Thallium malonate is one, there are polytungstates that will do the job too. All are highly expensive, and the thallium as the added bonus of being highly toxic, and really soluble! Oh joy!
I've seen a lot of reference to ammonium halides, sulfuric acid, and atmospheric oxygen (possibly substituted for H2O2) as being an effective method for stripping values. Personally, I can give a damn about the wet chem methods for catalytic converters unless Steve can show me how well it really works.
Instead I put my hope on making the halides of these PGMS and taking advantage of the substrate's resistance to halogens, while exploiting the PGMs volatility when oxidized by a suitable halogen (bromine or chlorine). That is my pet project. Unfortunately, batch sizes would be limited to the size of the tube furnace you could construct, and how much of a reaction tube you could afford.
Lou
