Articles

    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 ...

    Fuel Cell in some History… A fuel cell converts the chemical energy of a fuel (usually hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen) into electricity in a process that requires a catalyst.   It has been with us since the 19th Century, although it took until the 1950s to create a design for use in vehicles. During the early 1960s, General Electric produced a fuel cell-based electrical power system for NASA’s Gemini and Apollo space ca ...

    Gold in particular, but also other precious metals including silver and the Platinum Group Metals (platinum, palladium, and rhodium), have long been considered attractive investment options. This has been highlighted recently with gold trading at its highest price since April 2013 and showing a 17% gain in just 8 months since the start of this year. And, whilst stock market volatility and concerns over the possibility of a global recession continue, gold prices are likely to ...

    There will always be a discrepancy between the specified content of PGMs (Platinum Group Metals - Platinum, Palladium, and Rhodium) at the time of manufacture and the actual amount recovered after processing. It is estimated that this discrepancy is a loss of around 15% in volume and 20% in value. The higher loss in value terms is due to the costs associated with the smelting and refining processes involved in PGM recovery. These losses can be quantified in two areas: &nbs ...

    For the second time this year, Palladium recently broke through the $1,600/oz mark, following the price hitting a record high of almost $1,615 earlier this year – almost double the low of $834/oz in August last year, exceeding our predictions. This proved, once again, to be a short term breakthrough, although many now believe that palladium will consolidate its price above $1,600/oz before too long. Metals Focus, one of the leading precious metals consultancies, ...

    We all know and understand the mechanisms and value of the autocatalyst recycling market, and the importance of its role in recovering precious PGMs, from both a financial and environmental perspective. There is, though, another sector of importance - that of industrial catalysts, used in a broad range of industrial processes, perhaps the most important being petroleum refining. In 1949, Honeywell UOP(formerly Universal Oil Products) pioneered the use of platinum catalysts ...

    It is now mandatory, virtually across the globe, that vehicle manufacturers must include catalytic converters in all their production, in order to reduce the number of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide produced by the combustion of fossil fuels which in turn reduces the amount of smog and greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere. Most manufacturers produce their own catalysts (OEM) to exacting standards, in order to ensure they do not run foul of the law. Although the ...

    As the automotive recycling industry has grown and developed, there is an increasing amount of data being generated and studied by companies in the business, both large and small. Making sense of the data is, of course, another matter, and making it work for you is a key route to better profit. Traditionally, the market has used average value per unit of recycled auto catalysts as its main data measurement. This worked reasonably well when there was no great variation betw ...

    Our third and final Atlanta presentation was made by Dr. Semih Sunkar from Nippon PGM, a joint venture between DOWA Metals & Mining Co., Ltd,. and Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. DOWA, with a 60% share has expertise in smelting, base metals, and recycling, Tanaka, with 40% is well known for its refining capabilities. Japanese-based, Nippon PGM is also established in USA and in the Czech Republic and the company has created a unique and environmentally sound PGM recycli ...

    Our second presentation from the IPMI Auto Catalyst & Fuel Seminar came from Dr. Stewart Brown, a Principal Analyst at Johnson Matthey’s Market Research division, and it covered a look at historical demand for Platinum Group Metal (PGMs - platinum, palladium, rhodium); the impact of legislation; technology and configuration trends; the changing “powertrain” mix; palladium substitution in three-way catalysts; implications for collectors and refiners.   1. PGM De ...