The amount of platinum, palladium and rhodium used in the catalytic converter of a typical car is small—a little more than a tenth of a gram in the case of rhodium.
But these metals are so valuable—rhodium can fetch up to $17,000 per ounce—that a spent catalytic converter from a car that has been sent to the scrapyard can contain more than $300 worth of platinum-group metals.
The challenge is separating those valuable metals from the other metals and materials in discarded, ground up catalytic converters, diesel particulate filters and industrial catalysts used in petrochemical and pharmaceutical plants.
Currently, the most common method for recovering these metals involves smelting,
→ Continue reading at BIV