HOW TO RECOVER PLATINUM FROM CATALYTIC CONVERTERS

A. Hi. Sorry, I don't know why the guy didn't want it ... maybe he is acting more as a junk yard offering used parts for re-use than a scrapper; or perhaps it's just a matter of logistics for him rather than intrinsic value. Maybe he gets asked how many units he has for sale and doesn't want to say "Well I have 50 pieces that if you fit together would make, hmm, maybe 16-1/2?").

I would tend to agree that the PGM recovery value is still there; but all you can do is ask someone else or give it up.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi Charles. When times change, some businesses start becoming less viable or unviable. Sadly, I think that's going to become the case for your business of collecting damaged honeycombs from a junk yard that rips up catalytic convertors.

Surely you recognize that catalytic converter theft has become rampant across the country. My town's police department and every town around me have issued bulletins and alerts. It's been on the national TV news frequently, and the politicians are busy writing laws prohibiting sales unless the parties are registered and the provenance of each converter is documented and proven. I'm sure investigators now periodically visit refiners.

If a good honeycomb can yield $100 or so, but repairing a car from which it's been stolen costs $4500-$6500, sometimes more, and there are now countless innocent victims demanding change, unfortunately I think it's going to be hard to sell whole convertors and impossible to sell plastic bags of broken ones. Being legal is one thing, proving it is another. Sorry, I hope you prove me wrong, but I think your business is doomed.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hello A.

I feel for you and your aunt, and hope you can figure it out, but you may not be able to.

As I sit here tonight, my cell phone is next to me, ready to bring up my front door camera with a view of my car ... because catalytic converters have been cut out recently within a few doors of me as well as on several other streets in town, and the police are asking everyone to watch for such activity. You obviously will be unable to document the provenance of the honeycombs and the bucket of dust, so it probably just isn't worth it to recovery facilities to get involved. I wish you luck, but I don't think it's going to work.

Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

"The Guide to Catalytic Converter Buying: This Is a Crazy Business"
by Jordan Washington

on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. If you want to do it just to prove the point to your friends, then I agree. But if you're wanting to make money out of it, be prepared to spend a decent amount of your life and a little fortune with no guarantee of success up front.

A. We have the process for getting platinum (and other platinum grade metal from scrap catalytic converters). Listen to your friends. The platinum is there, but it is a very dangerous process and you have to know what you are doing.

A. Catalytic converters have precious metal in them, Mario. It's those precious metals that provide the catalytic reaction: when partially burned exhaust gasses contact these red-hot metals they burn the rest of the way. So collect on the bet! :-)

Recovery is rather dangerous and probably shouldn't be attempted without training in chemistry and hazardous materials management though. Good luck.

A. Yes there is Platinum in catalytic converters. You can't recover it yourself; you have to take it a place that buys gold, metals, scraps. I buy catalytic converters, I pay good money. It depends on what kind of catalytic converter you have and if it's full, or half full.

A. I think Ted was kind of on the right track with his answer, but just as wrong as the rest of the responders. You will probably not find anyone willing to give up the process that they use because they use it to recover the material themselves. It would be nice if they came right out and said that so you could use your powers of internet research on chemistry to devise your own way of extracting the materials. BTW, if a person wishes to blow themselves up or poison themselves let them do it just don't take anyone else with you.

! Hi, Ron. Sure, people can be coy; but this site alone has tens of thousands of pages of people helping people, and there are tens of thousands of sites like it. The main problem isn't coyness, but a bit of complexity & hazard. Some brain surgeons and rocket scientists are coy too, but their coyness isn't the main reason you don't find simple 1-page instructions for brain surgery or building a lunar landing module :-) Ted Mooney, P.E. Striving to live Aloha finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi, Georgia. You can cut the valuable part out from the steel. They will look a lot like a small muffler. The metal housing is stainless steel and contains no precious metal (although stainless steel has scrap value too!). The precious metal is in the ceramic honeycombs you find inside. But be careful to keep records -- because reputable recyclers will (hopefully) not buy from you unless you are convincing about their legitimacy. Best of luck!

"Refining Precious Metal Wastes"
by C. M. Hoke

on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. I did the math as you asked, Nathan, and came up with $80. Looking at eBay with asking prices from about $10 to $150 for scrap catalytic convertors, it seems that developing a good "buy low / sell high" strategy is an easier way to make money than doing the chemistry yourself :-)

"Recovery and Refining Of precious Metals"
by C.W. Ammen

on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. I personally don't know much about it, but recovery of precious metals is a well developed industrial science, Rachel, and there are books that compare the alternative approaches and explain the chemistry in depth. Read the great reviews of Ammen's book .

If you can provide a little more detail on what you are trying to do, you will probably get better targeted and therefore more helpful answers. Thanks!

"Scrap Catalytic Converter Buying & Selling"


on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. Hi, Wade.

My expertise is in metal finishing and running a public forum website. I've never done that refining, and only vaguely understand it, but it's not secret; it's just complex to explain when starting from zero. Johnson-Matthey & Heraeus, with their half-billion dollar precious metal refineries, are no more afraid of competition from you than Boeing is.

If you ask a very specific question, people will almost always answer; but if you say "tell me how to build a jetliner", it's not that people refuse to answer, it's that the only thing they can do is point you to the right aisle in the library; they simply can't distill those shelves of books on aeronautical engineering into 2 paragraphs.

Recovery of precious metals is a well developed science-- start by reading one of the books that we mention here, that are readily available from any large library. Give yourself a couple of weeks of browsing through a couple and you'll be able to do it yourself or ask specific questions that people will be able to answer.

Good luck.

A. Since "complicated and dangerous" doesn't seem to satisfy the masses on what it takes to extract precious medals from items such as catalytic converters, I'll put it in another way. The process to do so is known as carbochlorination and the simplified textbook definition of the process is as follows:

A stepwise carbochlorination--chemical vapor transport (SC--CVT) process is proposed for the rare earth extraction and separation from a mixed bastnaesite-monazite concentrate based on thermodynamic and kinetic analysis using carbon as reductant, chlorine gas as chlorination agent, SiCl₄ as defluorination agent, and AlCl₃ as vapor complex former. Between 500 °C and 800 °C, apparent activation energy of the carbochlorination within 2 hours changed from 22 to 16 kJ/mol roughly for the initial half hour and final 1 hour, respectively, in the absence of SiCl₄; but these values reduced to 15 and 2.1 kJ/mole under 2 kPa of SiCl₄ gas. The rare earth chloride yield for 2 hours was 56 to 88 mol pct in the absence of SiCl₄ and 92 to 99 mol pct in the presence of SiCl₄; but carbochlorination at above 1000 °C yielded a large amount of acid-insoluble residue. This, together with the negligible equilibrium vapor pressure of ThCl₄ at below 600 °C, suggests that carbochlorination of the mixed concentrate at temperatures as low as 500 °C in the (Cl₂ 1 SiCl₄) atmosphere is suitable for rare earth extraction and thorium-free volatile by-product release, which is different from the conventional Goldschmidt process at 1000 °C to 1200 °C. The CVT reaction of the carbochlorination product was performed at 800 °C for 0.5 hours in the (Cl₂ 1 SiCl₄ 1 AlCl₃) atmosphere and then at 1000 °C for 6 hours in the (Cl₂ 1 AlCl₃) atmosphere along different temperature gradients, leading to complete thorium removal and efficient rare earth separation, respectively. Their combination allows an efficient and environmentally conscious extraction and separation of rare earth elements from the mixed concentrate.

If you can't understand that then you're out of luck. there is no simpler, step by step method of doing this.

"Automobile Catalytic Converters"
by Kathleen C Taylor

on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. Cory just finished taking the time to give you the 'secret' info, Zachary. But me, you, and most others don't have the background knowledge to understand his instructions. Any large library will have books on recovering platinum and precious metals; people may need to study those books before they understand Cory's instructions.

I bought a replacement catalytic converter from Meineke for under $150. OEM models for larger cars have more platinum but $2600 didn't sounded believable. So I spent some time on line looking for the world's most expensive catalytic converter and the highest price I could find was $2495 for a pair for a Ferrari,

Yes, the precious metals are indeed valuable ... but maybe the real issue is that there are people who want to sell you scrap at ridiculous prices by exaggerating its value while implying that recovery is drop-dead easy?

A. I am a buyer of scrap catalytic converters.The process you ask about is very hard and dangerous. It is a process that is regulated under EPA standards. It is profitable to sell the converter as a whole unit. You can refine or have them refined in other countries if you want to gather up 3000 of them and wait 90 days on your money to come back to you. My web site buys on average 2500 catalytic converters a month. I have tried it all and to refine a converter yourself is totally crazy. There is 3 acids in the process and it becomes very explosive, and at times it does explode.The proper automated machines keep the workers safe when this happens. There are several platinum groups in most converters. A large gm I pay 100.00 for it on my web site. A aftermarket converter is not worth what a factory converter is. It will only net you 10.00 as scrap. Some large converters I pay 140.00 for them and some exotic converters go higher than that, 200.00 or so. Before you find all there is to refining your own think about the people around you and the laws of the land.

I agree with Mr. Mooney's last post. It is impossible to recover $200 in metals value from a product that RETAILS for less than $200!

Now, I do believe that finding silver/gold/Pt/Pd and other precious metals in a refinable form is still do-able at flea-markets, garage and estate sales and thrift stores - with enough time and patience. They, like others, have become much more sophisticated, so, likely they tested and 'high-graded' anything before it went out for sale.
Garage sales at private residences (NOT conducted by professional estate or auction services) remain the best candidates.

Cory and Ted. Thank you for your exact (Cory) and extremely patient answers (Ted). Both answer with straight forward intelligence. If only all forums had people like you answering, this would be a smarter world. "If it was easy, everybody would do it!"

A. The carbochlorination behavior of scrapped honeycomb-type automobile catalysts was investigated using a chlorine and carbon monoxide gas mixture to fully extract platinum and rhodium in the catalysts. The recoveries of platinum, rhodium, and base metals are monitored by ICP-AES analyses. Upflow type of fixed-bed carbochlorination experiments were performed between 250 and 700 C. The effects of flow rate, time, and partial pressures of chlorine and carbon monoxide were also determined. After optimization of these parameters, the recoveries of about 95.9% of platinum and 92.9% of rhodium were obtained at 550 C. The recovered condensate was contaminated by various base metal chlorides. The chlorides generated from the base metals could be minimized by decreasing the flow rate of the gas mixture without any deterioration of PGM recoveries, but at the expense of the volatility. The carbochlorination of scrapped automobile catalysts could be an efficient way for the profitable recovery of platinum and rhodium chlorinated compounds at comparatively low temperatures. Sorry I can't find the credits

I agree with most of the comments here. The process is not one that everyone should be trying. It is much easier to just find someone who is doing it all the time. There are a few good companies that would be happy to buy all the CCs you can get them.

If you want to try something try to recover gold. It is plenty dangerous enough for the thrill seekers and you are much more likely to have a good outcome. After you have done a few hundred pounds of gold then you can move up to this.

I should mention scale is very important when it comes to profit margins on both of these processes.

? Have you seen anyone censoring anything here, Adam? ... or, to the contrary, do you see us fighting to try to keep any offered information available?

A. I too used to think like most of you until I talked to a gentleman who owns a bronze sculpture foundry. I in turn found out the secret. A Crucible and crucible furnace is all you need along with some bon ami ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and silica sand. You can find the plans for a furnace online easily. Easy to assemble and use.

Platinum and Palladium are each different weights and one has a higher melting point than the other so when cooling down they tend to separate somewhat. When you pour the mold it will cool and the slag can be removed with a small hammer. and then you have almost pure platinum and palladium.

Do some research -- it is not that hard to search this stuff. The reason most people don't do it is they are either dreamers or just too stupid or flat out too lazy to try when they find out what it takes. The average cc contains around (if all used up) about a 1/4 oz. One that came off of a [certain model] that had been wrecked before it got used almost new produces close to 3 oz. Don't let the buyers of cc's lie and say they don't hardly get much more from you on them from their buyers. They make a lot and the guys who melt them make a killing. Do your research if you want to make money. It is doable and should be done by anyone with half a brain!

The "low" price for platinum today was $1951/oz., the low price for palladium was $432/oz. If we assume the car maker uses half palladium and half platinum it would cost them $3575 of metal to charge a converter? Some convertors are worth more than others, but something doesn't quite add up, Chuck.

Regards,

The new converters that they sell are not like the ones that come on the new car. They use a pgm that is not as high as platinum or pall. These are after market. They don't care if it costs them 3 grand to produce one for the new car because they will add that to the new car price. Just an example: before the cc came out on new cars the value of a car was in the mid thousand dollar range. Like in the 70's a new car (not a Cadillac mind you) but a regular car was around 7,000 dollars.
When the cc was added because of emissions control cars started becoming 10 to 12000 dollars. This fit with the plan and now it will cost 18,000 and up. They use the price of the car to offset the cc that has the platinum inside. the new cats that you get are either reconditioned or made of cheap stuff. If I buy one that came off of a new car it will yield way more than that of a knock off. Also with a lot of states like here that require an inspection sticker no more, They can put less of the valuable components into them for sale in these states and still be in compliance. To sum it all up if you buy for 100.00 you have to make a profit. If you don't you are just spinning your wheels. I just smelted an '89 and produced 1/3 oz of platinum on a dead one. It is there and I make a lot on it every weekend. I average 2 to 3,000.00 every weekend on cc's. I also extract gold from plated cosmetic jewelry and have a good time doing it in my spare time. If people would take the time to do it right they would make a lot of extra money for themselves. You just have to be safe doing it so you don't hurt your self in the process.

Chuck

A. Well I am sure we are all tired of hearing the same questions over and over again and that is "HOW". Well, stop asking the how and just ask what's the best way to make the most money you can. That part is soooo simple anyone can do it. First of all get a 55 gallon barrel and then start collecting converters. Punch a hole in the converters and the beads will usually fall out. You will notice there are different colored beads, the dark ones are the trash and the other lighter colored ones are the metals you're looking for. Now I am no rocket scientist but it sure don't take one to fill up that 55 gallon barrel and have it shipped to a refiner in Cali. A barrel full is worth about 20,000 USD, so what's your choice? I for one will stick to watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery channel and learn from the Pro's on how to safely recycle converters. And by the way if you're still wanting to try it all yourselves, then you will need hydrochloric acid, muriatic acid so you can mix them in the right amounts to make the acid that is needed to extract the metals. I won't go into more detail than that, you can go find what your looking for on the Discovery network, I am sure they will have a re-run there.

"And by the way if you're still wanting to try it all yourselves, then you will need hydrochloric acid, muriatic acid so you can mix them in the right amounts to make the acid that is needed to extract the metals. I won't go into more detail than that, you can go find what you're looking for on the Discovery network, I am sure they will have a re-run there."

See it is that one lil sentence that is a bunch of bull, "I wont go into more detail than that." Why in the heck can't you people share what you know? Instead you have to be all secretive and say oh it's dangerous and you need all these poisonous chemicals. Why? just to try to discourage us because you don't want us possibly taking your profit if we're in your area. All metal will melt at some point, so why not just melt it out (after all you probably do) because it's easier. You tell us about chemicals to thwart us from trying when you people are probably just tossing them into a furnace and pouring brick after brick.

Hi, Tyler.

• Cory from Tulsa explained in detail how the precious metals can be recovered.
• Then Brian from Buffalo did the same.
• Then Adam from Mobile pointed you to a patent describing some methods.
• Then Chuck from Purcell, OK explained an alternate way to do it by melting.
• Dale from Texas suggested collecting the beads in barrels as the best place to position yourself in the recovery chain to make money simply and easily, but went on to name a TV program if you want to go further.
• We've listed books, available from any library, that will explain all.

But instead of thanking anyone for their help, you demand that someone explain in a paragraph how people of unknown skill & experience, perhaps without even basic high school chemistry, can perform a precious metal refining process, such as done in half-billion dollar factories, "pouring brick after brick" of precious metal. It's just so ridiculous.

Please study, and then ask any detailed question you wish and people will probably be delighted to try to answer it if they can -- but muriatic acid and hydrochloric acid are the same thing, so I doubt that the ratio matters :-)

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. OH, GOOD GRIEF! Y'KNOW, TED....YOU ALWAYS HAVE SUCH A RESERVED CONTROL WITH YOUR RESPONSES TO THESE POSTS AND I DO ADMIRE YOU FOR THAT. BELIEVE ME...I UNDERSTAND JUST HOW OFTEN YOU MUST BITE YOUR LIP AND GIVE A SIGNIFICANT PAUSE TO REFLECT ON THE ABSURDITIES SOME OF THESE POSTERS KEY-OUT. ONE HAS TO WONDER IF THEY ARE JOKING WITH US OR (even worse) ARE ACTUALLY SERIOUS ABOUT SOME OF THEIR FANTASTIC BELIEFS AND STATEMENTS. I DEAL WITH VARIOUS SEGMENTS OF THE PGM RECYCLING INDUSTRY ON A DAILY (and nightly) BASIS AND EVERY TIME I THINK THAT I'VE HEARD IT ALL..AND BEFORE MY SIDE STOPS HURTING FROM UNCONTROLLED LAUGHTER...I HEAR SOMETHING EVEN FUNNIER. YEAH...I GET A REGULAR DOSE OF COMMENTS FROM INDIVIDUALS CLAIMING THAT THERE'S GOTTA BE SOME SORT OF CONSPIRACY WITH REGARD TO ACTUAL RETRIEVABLE PGM LOADS FROM VARIOUS AUTO CATALYSTS AND INDUSTRIAL SUCCENTS. SO MANY OF THEM DO BELIEVE THAT WE MUST BE SALVAGING MANY, MANY TIMES THE ACTUAL AMOUNTS OF THOSE PRECIOUS METALS THAT EXIST IN THE SPENT CATALYSTS.

AND THEY ALSO BELIEVE THAT THE PROCESS IS SIMPLE AND COSTS VERY LITTLE TO DO IT. TED, I SWEAR, IN ANY MONTH, I COULD GATHER ENOUGH STORY MATERIAL TO MAKE A VERY BIZARRE COMEDY. I SUPPOSE THAT I WOULD NEED TO WRITE-IN A FEW CHASE SCENES AND OTHER HI-TENSION SUBJECT MATTER TO HOLD GENERAL AUDIENCE INTERESTS. BUT, I DON'T KNOW IF I WOULD WANT TO INCLUDE THE PERSONAL REALITY OF ME WAKING UP IN A COLD-CLAMMY SWEAT, SCREAMING..FOR HOURS AND HOURS,(on a good night) FROM DREAMING ABOUT SOME OF THE THINGS THESE MISDIRECTED, NAIVE AND SOMETIMES HYSTERICAL PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY TO ME ON THE PHONE OR eMAIL. AAARRRRAGGGAAAHHHHH! OK,...OK...I'M ALRIGHT NOW..gonna pour myself a good brandy. THERE. I'LL GET THROUGH THIS TONIGHT...I WILL... OK, NOW....'TILL IT STARTS ALL OVER AGAIN TOMORROW MORNING.. I, Umm...I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.........

Why when someone lays it out for you you think it's wrong?
it's not safe you can't do it in your house or basement; if you get it wrong you die!
SO look it up and then think about it!
Get it wrong, you're dead and everyone close to you.
Can't fix dumb

A. I believe I know how, but it is dangerous. I have done this with gold, and believe you can do it with platinum. you will need to dissolve it in a hot aqua regia. aqua regia is made with hydrochloric and nitric acids. acids are very dangerous when you heat them. after you dissolve the platinum you can recover it by filtering out the acid through a coffee filter. gold appears as a white powder on the filter. I am not sure about platinum. the melting point of platinum is 1755 °C. much hotter than gold at 1063 °C I hope this helps and gives you enough information that you will be able to make a good decision on is it really worth it!

Hey, I got me some cat converters we found just hangin off the cars in the walmart parkin lot, and me and some of my buds here in the trailer park are thinkin of settin up an advanced precious metals extraction lab in my shed (thinkin of callin it "Hazmat Heaven") and I wanna know from you people what's a cheap easy way I can learn from one post, to get the $50,000 worth of palladium, platinum, titanium, uranium, and kryptonite and stuff. And don't ask me to do too much readin!

(No, but seriously folks, here's a message from a Firefighter/EMT/Hazmat Tech: You have no more business doing "do it yourself" metallurgy of this type than you have making your own fireworks or booze. Wait, what? Oh, never mind. Well, please at least warn the folks at 9-1-1 before you start. See you soon.)

A. I am going to explain the easiest way to do this, However keep in mind that it can be extremely dangerous if you are not constantly paying attention. Chuck was the smartest and closest poster yet. First you take the contents of the CC whether it be beads or honeycomb and melt it. This can be done in a 30 gallon steel barrel with a crucible inside. You will have to crack the ceramic in a few places to accelerate the melt. It is best to use a large ceramic coated cooks pot so you don't have to transfer the liquid later. After the melt has cooled cover half of it with chemically pure nitric acid, cover the remainder with water, this makes the acid start to work. Next take it to an area far away from human traffic , the fumes and smoke are truly DEADLY. Put this on an old gas barbecue with a side burner and heat it. The acid will eat everything but gold and platinum metals. Take what is left in the bottom of the pot to a refiner and they will refine it and pay you much more than you will get if you sell them whole. REMEMBER this is very dangerous but it works.

Sorry folks had to say something on the subject, I don't normally write on forums just read them. Anyhow it's not anyone's place to say you shouldn't experiment with these suggestions, most discoveries are made from mistakes after all. But I will say: DO NOT LISTEN TO Angelo C
retired - St. Petersburg, FL.... NEVER ADD WATER TO ACID. If you add water to acid, you form an extremely concentrated solution of acid initially. So much heat is released that the solution may boil very violently, splashing concentrated acid out of the container! If you add acid to water, the solution that forms is very dilute and the small amount of heat released is not enough to vaporize and spatter it. So Always Add Acid to water, and never the reverse.

Dave tupps
- Swansea, Wales, U.K.
November 12, 2008

"DO NOT LISTEN TO Angelo Casa
retired - St. Petersburg, FL.... NEVER ADD WATER TO ACID. If you add water to acid, you form an extremely concentrated solution of acid initially. So much heat is released that the solution may boil very violently, splashing concentrated acid out of the container! If you add acid to water, the solution that forms is very dilute and the small amount of heat released is not enough to vaporize and spatter it. So Always Add Acid to water, and never the reverse."

I completely disagree...let's pretend I have a 5 gallon pail with 1 gallon of hydrochloric acid in it. Now, I add another gallon of the same acid to the 5 gallon pail. I am only changing the volume of acid, not the concentration. Once weekly, at my place of employment, I must fill a 55 gallon drum with 10 gallons of hydrochloric acid and then dilute with 45 gallons of water. This has been done this way every week since the place opened in 1967. Never been a problem with it...

Chris Jones
- Neenah Wisconsin
December 21, 2008

"Do as you oughta, add acid to waughta"

Hi, Chris. If you add water to an acid which is already sufficiently diluted, it might cause no problem, and your hydrochloric acid is at most 35%. But Dave is absolutely correct about the principle, and it's the procedure to learn and practice, and then you'll never have a problem wondering whether the acid is weak enough to keep you out of trouble.

When water and strong acids are mixed, a lot of heat is produced; this is called the heat of liberation. If some droplets of water are added to a strong acid, you can have a situation where those droplets are surrounded by concentrated acid and as it begins to mix, the heat of liberation can be great enough to quickly flash those droplets of water to steam and blow concentrated acid out of the mixing container. This isn't just book stuff, it's real stuff that has injured many and killed some.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi
I have a reactor for leaching catalysts same catalytic convertors process is simple and effective recovery platinum is 97% in this process we load pacol catalyst about 15 KG then add sodium cyanide 60 liter 1% after 2 h and 160 °C platinum and other precious metals dissolve. We recover solution on anionic resin after burning resin we have pure platinum then this platinum purified.

"Hand-Held X-Ray Analyzer

on eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. Hi Dennis,
By far the easiest method of identifying metals is with a hand-held x-ray fluorescence alloy sorter/scrap sorter, but the cost is way beyond what most individuals could be expected to pay -- probably not less than $25K, maybe twice that.

But if you have a good friend who works in a scrap yard or a metals warehouse he might be able to show you one, maybe even do a test for you. Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. I must add that thus far, it seems that some haven't even read the whole forum. Most of the new questions have been answered farther back. As for being informed and the morality of "stealing" a process, I think that you should read up and learn the do and don'ts of the process; but in the end, simple or not, everyone should be allowed to experiment with these processes and perhaps learn a better way to extract these precious metals.

The real reason, though, that I am responding is if you check up about gas and other such fossil fuel emissions, you will learn that gold, platinum, palladium, etc... are found in these fuels and are released into the air upon burning. The cats actually catch these metal particles, adding to the cat's original metal content. This makes the cats more valuable than they actually started off as and this discovery had been made some 30 years ago. The process of extracting these materials was only partially aired on TV not too long ago where the spokesman of the company let slip that cats do the same filtering and collecting as his plant does through filtering emissions. This is why you can buy a $200 cat and 5 years later, sell it for about $100 (where it just seems to be an old piece of junk) The gentleman had shown a tray of blackish powder and stated that its contents were platinum and palladium (mostly) and was worth over 3 million dollars.

Think about it. You may be doing a small favor to the environment, but the refineries wouldn't be there unless it was absolutely worth it. You are in fact collecting these precious materials for someone else to make a lot of profit, even though the process is complex enough. If you can refine it yourself though the above mentioned process by the others, do so. Better to have the money in your pocket than someone else's. Good luck and be careful.