Rhodium Recovery & Refining
Rhodium is one of the rarest and most valuable precious metals, essential for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. Viyanmani recovers rhodium from spent three-way catalysts and chemical process catalysts with meticulous chemical separation.
What is Rhodium?
Rhodium (Rh, atomic number 45) is an extraordinarily rare, hard, silvery Platinum Group Metal with outstanding reflectivity and corrosion resistance.
It is uniquely effective at catalyzing the reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx), making it irreplaceable in modern three-way catalytic converters.
With annual primary production of only around 30 tonnes worldwide, rhodium recovery is essential to meeting industrial demand.
Industries using Rhodium
Rhodium applications
- NOx reduction in three-way automotive catalytic converters
- Oxo-synthesis and hydroformylation catalysts
- Nitric acid production gauze alloys with platinum
- Reflective and wear-resistant electrical contacts
- Rhodium plating for white-gold and silverware finishing
Recovering and refining Rhodium
Our integrated route recovers Rhodium from secondary materials and refines it to 99.95%+ purity.
Recovery Process
Rhodium is recovered chiefly from spent autocatalysts. Feed is finely sampled and smelted so that rhodium reports to the collected PGM concentrate rather than being lost to slag — a step demanding tight process control given rhodium's high melting point.
Extraction Process
Rhodium is notoriously difficult to dissolve. Viyanmani uses aggressive, carefully controlled dissolution chemistry to bring rhodium into solution while managing its resistant metallurgy.
Recycling Process
Recycling recovers rhodium from vehicle catalysts and chemical process catalysts back into refined metal. Given rhodium's extreme scarcity and price, closed-loop recovery is among the highest-value services in precious-metal refining.
Purification
Rhodium is separated from platinum and palladium through selective chemistry and precipitated as a purified salt, then reduced to sponge and verified by ICP-OES to 99.95%+ purity.
Why refine Rhodium with Viyanmani
- Specialist handling of a metal that is difficult to dissolve and refine
- Maximized rhodium yield through tight smelting control
- 99.95%+ purity with full analytical certification
- Transparent valuation on one of the world's most valuable metals
Rhodium and sustainability
- Recovers an exceptionally scarce resource that would otherwise be lost
- Reduces demand pressure on constrained primary rhodium output
- Supports continued reduction of harmful NOx vehicle emissions
Rhodium questions, answered
Common questions about how Rhodium is recovered, recycled, and refined.
Rhodium is extremely rare — only about 30 tonnes are produced annually — and is uniquely effective at reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. Limited supply combined with essential demand makes it one of the most valuable precious metals on earth.
Other metals we refine
Recover Rhodium from your materials
Talk to our specialists about recovering and refining Rhodium from your spent catalysts, scrap, or residues.