Top 5 Reasons to NOT scrap and recycle Palladium

So, in the previous article about palladium, you maybe got all excited over collecting this metal which is more valuable than gold. Well, that is not necessarily a good idea. Lets discuss the top 5 reasons not to scrap and recycle palladium

A quick reminder

Palladium is a rare, silvery-white transition metal belonging to the platinum group of metals.
Platinum is 15 times rarer than gold, yet palladium is 30 times less commonplace by comparison.
Palladium is used as an electrode in multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs).

The bottom line.

MLCC capacitors are easy to spot on a circuit board. They have a distinct rectangular appearance. On many computer PCBs there is even a ‘C’ printed next to it, just to help you narrow down that search.

But whilst it’s easy to get them off the circuit board, why bother?

Remember the scrap mining article? All about microscrapping and the depths you can go down this rabbit hole? Remember that the further down you mine, the lower the returns. Why is this?

Reason 1

MLCC capacitors are very small and thus they are very light. It will take a lot of circuit boards to get a decent weight. Don’t forget that the actual quantity of palladium is still much lower. This useful video from OwlTech shows you can get about 15g of Palladium from 1.4kg of capacitors. Yet that 1.4kgs would take a long time to accumulate. For the average hobbyist this is a monumental task.

Reason 2

By removing said MLCCs you are devaluing the board. What was once a high grade board is now likely to be rated as a midgrade or even lower, depending on your dealer’s whims.

Reason 3

Even if you do refine the platinum, whoa re you going to sell it to? Jewellers or scrap merchants are not going to randomly accept ingots of Palladium without a lot of checking and assays. So all you can do is put them next to your ingots of copper you also cannot get rid of.

Reason 4

Its hardly ecological is it? ‘But I’m stopping them go to landfill,’ I hear you shout. Yes, sure you are. But in the meantime you have used some nasty chemicals which you now need to dump, and you have used some gas to fire up your furnace, nicely adding to your carbon footprint. Of course I appreciate that some readers do not care about such matters, or are even climate deniers, but this is a web site about microscrapping and the main motivation for that is about recycling and saving the planet.

Reason 5

Its unlikely to be very profitable for the average shed hobbyist, processing a few boards a week. You will get more money focussing on the real gold of scraping – copper. The only real option open to you is to eBay them. Bags of 100g. There are always people who are either gullible enough or greedy enough to want them.

Conclusion

It might sound harsh to you but really don’t bother. All those exciting YouTube videos showing someone smelting away in their backyard are nice to watch, but far from practical. Sure, if you like smelting, are not worried about the environmental impact or cost go for it. If you are happy to sit an ingot of palladium on your mantlepiece for show, then fine do it. But for microscrappers, best to leave them on the circuit board and reap the benefits of selling the board.

This article isn’t meant to put you off, but hopefully it has given you some food for thought and balances out the previous one.