An earlier blog on this subject covered recovery of precious metals from the jewellery industry. Since then, there has been another supply of Haat`s PMR model incinerator for the same application but to a different industry and with a modified and more efficient design.

We are now going to talk about recovery of precious metal such as platinum, palladium, etc. from the pharma industry.

Some pharmaceutical processors use a variety of precious metal bearing catalysts for hydrogenation of various intermediates, and for removing harmful exhaust emissions.  The precious metals used in catalytic processes include platinum and palladium, ruthenium and rhodium, commonly referred to as PGMs, or “Platinum Group Metals.”

A variety of carriers, or supports for these precious metals are used in pharmaceutical processing, depending upon the application, but the most common carrier is carbon supports.

Catalyst users work with refining companies to recover the catalysts once they lose their efficacy. Sometimes the pharma plants also recover these from process by-products.  Whatever is the source of recovery, the very high cost of the precious metal requires every effort for recovery.

Having determined the quantity and value of the spent catalyst and a reliable source for recovery, the pharma company has to satisfy itself that their precious metals will not be mixed up with other companies’ materials and also that their sample assaying and actual realization should not be too different.

The method used by the refinery is obviously incineration of the carbon material. However they are aware that the spent catalyst may be present in fine dust form and hence they have to take effective steps to recover it from more than one location.

The incinerator`s primary combustion chamber is obviously the first location, followed by the secondary chamber as the second location.  Depending on the configuration of the recovery system chosen, the next stage will be either the scrubber bleed tank or the bag house. The bag house has a >99% efficiency and is preferred because the recovery is in the form of dry dust. Whereas in the case of a wet scrubber, the precious metal has to be recovered once again by filter-pressing the bleed and maybe even incinerating the solid mass once again.

This multi-stage recovery process is ideal for maximum recovery of the spent precious metal.

How does the cost economics work in this case?

People ask how an incinerator is self-sustaining. Apart from the RTO, which uses the VOC content in the waste gas as fuel and hence requires no separate fuel to run it, the PMR model does use diesel or gas as fuel but the initial investment made in the plant itself can be recovered within a very short period of time obviously due to higher and better recovery of precious metails possible.

This has been the experience of our customers who have installed Haat model PMR incinerators.