Articles

Exactly one year ago (and before COVID-19’s full impact on the industrial world had manifested itself) we reported that the price of rhodium had reached an all-time high of over $10,000 per ounce, at the time around 6 times the value of gold! Last February, we believed that this was a bit of a one-off, caused by power shortages in South Africa which threatened a reduction in the output from the world’s main producer of mined rhodium (with over 80% market share). In fact, though, its price rose f ...

In all the recent furors over the relative prices of platinum and palladium, and what this means for the manufacturers of catalytic converters, the third, member of the “catalyst club” is often overlooked. Rhodium, one of the rarest metals on earth and the third PGM used as a catalyst in the automobile industry plays a prime role in reducing nitrogen oxide, a major pollutant in the exhaust gas. However, it is used in much smaller quantities than platinum and palladium - around 1 million ounces p ...

    Rhodium is one of the six Platinum Group Metals (PGM’s) - platinum, palladium, rhodium, osmium, iridium, and ruthenium - and the first three on this list are well known to all involved in the catalytic converter market. It would, though, be fair to say that rhodium attracts a great deal less publicity and interest than its catalyst partners, platinum and palladium. Yet, of the three, rhodium has by far the highest activity for the removal of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the exh ...

Rhodium: a rare metal Over 100 times rarer than gold, Rhodium is one of the most important metals to the $2 trillion global auto industry. The importance of Rhodium is such that at one point, in 2008 it traded at over $10,000 an ounce; although more recently prices have now dropped to a more realistic $750 an ounce. Rhodium is one of a number of metals including platinum, palladium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium that make up the Platinum Group Metals. These metals share similar physical a ...