The ceramic or metal honeycomb inside a vehicle exhaust, coated with platinum, palladium and rhodium — bought by serial number and assay, and the most valuable item in a scrapped car.
The ceramic or metal honeycomb inside a vehicle exhaust, coated with platinum, palladium and rhodium — bought by serial number and assay, and the most valuable item in a scrapped car.
A catalytic converter contains a few grams of platinum-group metals spread over a ceramic honeycomb inside a stainless shell. The metal content varies with the vehicle and the year, so converters are bought by reference number and by catalogue, or de-canned and the ceramic assayed by XRF or fire assay. Metal-substrate converters and diesel particulate filters are separate categories.
Theft and fraud are problems in this trade, and many countries now require dealers to be licensed, to record sellers and to pay by traceable means.
Converters are collected by dismantlers and scrap yards and sold to de-canning processors, then to precious-metal refiners in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea. The ceramic is ground and smelted to recover the PGMs; the stainless shell goes to the 400-series stream. Prices follow the platinum, palladium and rhodium markets daily.
Code: Automotive catalytic converters (PGM scrap)
The main importing countries for this grade — each links to the country page with its mills, smelters, price references and named firms.