The soaring price of palladium is of course related to its being a rare precious metal. Palladium is categorized as a platinum-based metal, and it shares similar properties with the following five other metals, namely platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium; hence, they are collectively known as the six platinum metals. In addition, palladium mines are very rare with most production limited to the following six locations: Transvaal, South Africa, Montana, USA, Ontario, Canada, and Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Consequently, scrap items containing palladium are rare to come by.

Hence, palladium can be commonly seen in automotive catalytic converters, proton exchange membranes for fuel cells, and in contact points for electrical connections. In addition, based on the requirements of current environmental regulations, catalytic converters have become standard equipment which must be installed in factories for fuel-powered automobiles. Meanwhile, environmental standards for exhaust emissions are also increasing yearly; therefore, the price of palladium has dramatically increased and strongly impacted automobile manufacturers.

As for in the electronics industry, in addition to being the main raw material for Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCC), palladium is commonly used as a material in connectors and targets. The photonics industry has a yearly consumption demand of approximately 33 tons of palladium.

Automated Palladium Recycling Solution Offers Both Efficiency and Environmental Protection

The scarcity and usefulness of palladium naturally brings about its unusually high value. In addition, because of this, palladium recycling has become a focus of attention for industries. However, palladium recycling is not particularly easy. One one hand, it is often mixed together with other precious metals; therefore, it is necessary to separate layers in order to obtain the most benefits. On the other hand, it is necessary to take environmental considerations into account and utilize refining procedures which neither endanger human health nor the environment.

In consideration of these two requirement, Taiwanese environmentally-friendly gold stripping solutions provider Uwin-Nanotech provides a palladium recycling solution which simultaneously achieves high-efficiency while also being environmentally friendly.

Uwin Nanotech’s solution employs an automated soaking-style recycling procedure, which can be used to carry out the processing of waste materials that contain palladium through the use of industrial batches. By soaking materials in Uwin Nanotech’s patented palladium metals stripping solution, palladium can be quickly stripped away in the solution, and then a restorative medium can be added to the palladium solution in order to enable the palladium metal and the medium to become solid and precipitate. Finally the solids are filtered out, and sintering refinement is carried out in order to obtain high-purity palladium metal.

During this process, in order to achieve the most accurate sintering results, Uwin-Nanotech makes use of a high frequency furnace to carry out refining. This allows for a more uniform heating temperature in order to avoid the problem of decreased recycling benefits due to surface and core temperatures dropping too much.

Kenny Hsu, Managing Director of UWin Nanotech pointed out that their automated palladium recycling solution is capable of handling a wide variety of palladium metals recycling, including waste connectors and automotive catalytic converters. As long as materials undergo the soaking, filtering, and sintering steps, palladium metals can be recycled with high efficiency. Furthermore, in addition to palladium, Uwin Nanotech can also separate out other metals such as gold, platinum, and rhodium to be recycled individually.

More importantly, this solution is also completely non-toxic and does not utilize aqueous water or any ingredients containing cyanide. Consequently, it is not only harmless to people’s health be also will not harm the ecological environment. It is a solution which takes into account both commercial interests and environmental protection.

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