Recovery of platinum from spent automotive catalyst based on hydrometallurgy

Platinum (Pt) is a critical raw material for automotive catalytic converters due to its high-temperature stability, corrosion resistance and catalytic activity, whereas its limited primary resources and uneven distribution make it hard to meet the growing demand of platinum. Spent automotive catalyst (SAC) is currently the most important secondary resource of platinum, of which the platinum content is much higher than that of the primary platinum resources. The recovery process of platinum from spent automobile catalyst mainly consists of pretreatment followed by enrichment and refining, involving pyro- and hydrometallurgical techniques, among which enrichment and refining processes are extremely important for platinum recovery from spent automobile catalyst. This paper provides an overview of the technologies for platinum recovery from spent automotive catalyst. The emphasis is placed on the processes of enrichment and refining based on hydrometallurgical techniques. Future directions of research and development of platinum recovery from spent automobile catalyst are also proposed.