Recovery of Platinum Group Metals at Nippon PGM Co., Ltd.

Abstract

The recycling of platinum group metals, especially those used for automobile and other catalysts, is widely recognized as essential, because of their limited existence in the earth's crust and high prices. To cope with such social necessity, Dowa Mining Co. and Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo developed a low-cost and high-recovery process, and then Nippon PGM Co., was established by these sponsoring companies. Nippon PGM Co. has been operating since then.Our processes and the recent operation in Nippon PGM are described in this paper.