If you go looking for gold or silver deposits outdoors, chances are good you will find small quantities of those precious metals. All you need is a metal detector, a gold panning kit or machinery, or other basic equipment. You might not find a tremendous amount of those metals during a typical day of prospecting. But you will find something – often enough to make your day of hunting worthwhile.

We have written about sputtering targets before on the Specialty Metals Blog. To review, they are multilayered disks that contain several different metals. When they are secured  inside a plasma plating tank and electrical current flows through them, their uppermost layer of metal (be it gold, platinum, or another metal) is dispersed into the plasma inside the tank.  Due to the flow of electrons, it adheres to the surface of whatever metal object is being plated.

Let’s start today’s article by asking you to answer this simple question about platinum . . . 

When you go looking for platinum scrap, you should be looking for a bright, white, metal with a shiny surface.   [  ] true [  ] false

You’ll be surprised to hear that the statement above is false! 

There is a simple reason why the demand for platinum scrap will remain strong in the future . . . 

The world’s platinum mines cannot keep up with the demand for platinum in manufacturing

According to statistics gathered by Statistica.com, 211.6 metric tons of platinum was used in manufacturing in year 2022.  

That’s a lot of platinum, and it might interest you to know where it was used.

A few years ago, it was time to replace the muffler/silencer on a riding mower. The company that owned it ordered a new muffler and yanked the old one off. At that point, the owner noticed that it had been installed by wrapping wire around one of the pipes that came out of the old muffler. 

That wire, which was about two feet long and weighed about 2/10 of a Troy Ounce, turned out to be made of pure platinum. It was worth more than $200.00. 

Let’s say you have a quantity of platinum scrap. It could be a few barrels full of old thermocouple wire, a batch of platinum wire you acquired from a jewelry factory that was going out of business, or even some old turbine blades from jet engines. 

If you have platinum scrap to refine, you could deliver it to a platinum refinery near where you live, walk away with a check for the amount of platinum that the refinery estimates your scrap contains, and never give it a second thought. 

Rhodium is a hard metal. It looks like chrome, and it is highly resistant to corrosion.

But mostly, rhodium is extremely rare . . . and extremely valuable. It is a precious metal. And “precious” is the right word, because rhodium is trading today at $10,750.00 on the London Fix. That’s significantly more than the current trading prices of gold ($1,798.00) or even platinum ($1,011.00). But there’s a lot more you should know about rhodium too – information that can help you refine this “other” precious metal for quite a lot of money.

Here’s a primer of useful information about rhodium.

When you consider making any kind of investment, you need to balance several important considerations. You might not realize you are balancing these factors, but you are.

Potential ROI (Return on Investment) – If you invest in something that offers high potential ROI, there is a chance that you can double, triple the money you invested, or maybe do even better. If you are investing in something that promises a lower potential ROI, you are willing to accept a lower potential profit from the money you invested.

Here at Specialty Metals, we are big fans of precious metals. Why? Because we have had the privilege of helping customers realize remarkable profits by reclaiming gold, silver, and platinum from precious metal scrap of all kinds.

Yes, we are enthusiastic about investing in precious metals. But our enthusiasm stops short when we hear from clients who have gotten carried away and bought precious metal items and scrap that they shouldn’t have.

Here are some categories of precious metal items that are unwise investments because they promise very little, if any, return on the dollars invested.

A recent article in Metals Focus points out that demand for platinum, palladium and rhodium (all platinum group metals) grew 5% in 2021 and is expected to hit a record 11% increase in 2022 alone.

What is causing the surge?

Metals Focus points to these two trends:

At Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners, we are in the business of making it as easy as possible for you to determine the value of precious metals and precious metal jewelry, be it karat gold, silver, platinum and even palladium and rhodium. If you send any item made of precious metals to us, our lab technicians can quickly determine what it is made of and tell you its value at current trading prices.

If you’ve been reading the Specialty Metals Blog over the last year, you know that we have been monitoring the increasing acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell cars, which promise to create greater demand for platinum. (Why? Because platinum is used to convert hydrogen to electricity that is used to power the cars.)

If you have been reading our posts, you also know that up until now, you have only been able to buy fuel cell cars in Hawaii and California, the only states where it is possible to buy hydrogen at a filling station.

When someone mentions devices that clean exhaust gas, chances are you think, “I know what they are . . . they’re catalytic converters that are installed on cars.”

But there are other kinds of exhaust gas purifiers that can be recycled profitably – varieties that you might not know about. They too can contain platinum, rhodium, and even palladium. We’ll give you a quick course on what these other kinds of exhaust gas purifiers are and how you can make money reclaiming them by having us recycle them for you.

Industrial catalysts are substances – often metallic powders or screens that are used in industry to speed up, start, or facilitate chemical reactions. Catalysts also are sometimes used to lower the amount of energy that is consumed by chemical processes.

Absorbent materials are another form catalysts can take. They are chemicals that are used to absorb and remove certain chemicals from compounds where they are found. For example, BASF makes a variety of products that absorb and remove impurities from natural gas before it is distributed to consumers. They are catalysts of a special kind.

If you think there are a lot of electrical switches in your home – hundreds, probably, if not more – you would be amazed to learn how many switches can be found in a factory where any kind of manufacturing process is taking place. It doesn’t matter whether that plant is making mechanical components, chemicals, paints, solar panels or much of anything else, you are going to find switches everywhere.

If you are replacing the central air conditioning in an older home, apartment building or factory, here’s something important to keep in mind . . .

Don’t toss parts of your old system that contain gold, silver, or valuable non-precious metals like copper and aluminum

As spring arrives across North America, more and more of us can head into the great outdoors to prospect for gold. Here is some new equipment that can help precious gold prospectors find more gold in the summer months ahead.

Will this emerging trend create new opportunities to recycle platinum?

Just when we were starting to think that enthusiasm for hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles was starting to fall, interest is picking up again. Learn more in this recent video about fuel cell cars that was shown on PBS News earlier this month.

Without thinking, many people throw away old items that contain precious metals that can be reclaimed for dollars – often, for a lot of dollars.

Sometimes they toss precious metals when they do home upgrades or repairs. Sometimes they do when they have their cars repaired.