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-----Refining of platinum
Q. I have a catalyst that contains 0.25% of platinum. My question is, would the purity increase from 0.25% to a higher percentage after pretreatment and refining?
Damian Vincent- Norh Dakota, USA
May 14, 2018
A. Hi Damian. I'm probably misunderstanding your question, because the answer is "of course" by the very definition of 'refining'. So please tell us your own actual situation so we can better understand. Thanks.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
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finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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May 2018
Q. Thanks Ted, I actually have a catalyst ore that has been tested and confirmed that it contains 0.25% of platinum. So I wanted to know if the purity will increase after pretreatment and refining?
Damian Vincent- North Dakota, USA
May 15, 2018
May 2018
A. Hi again. You're out of my area of experience, but one of us seems to be misunderstanding what refining means in this situation. If you have 100 pounds of ore which contains 0.25% platinum, there is a total of
100 x 0.0025 = 0.25 pounds of platinum in it.
When you refine it, if none of the platinum is lost through inefficient processing, you will still have 0.25 pounds of platinum, but you will have removed and discarded a substantial portion of the 99.75 pounds which was not platinum.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
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