Top 5 Reasons to Scrap and Recycle Palladium

What is Palladium

We all get a little excited about this one, but what exactly is it? Palladium is a chemical element with symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare, silvery-white transition metal belonging to the platinum group of metals. Palladium has two allotropic forms: palladium(II) and palladium(III). The most common isotope, Pd, accounts for 87% of its total supply.

Palladium is most commonly found in the platinum group of metals, but it can also be found in ores such as rhodium and iridium. Russia and South Africa are the main places where the metal is found. Most of the time, it is found as a byproduct of mining operations that are focused on other metals, like platinum or nickel.

The chemical element palladium was discovered by William Hyde Wollaston in 1803. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which he observed on December 5 of that year. – The name “palladium” comes from Greek words meaning “alloy of silver”, a reference to its color and other properties similar to those of silver (which is sometimes called “white tin”).

Platinum is 15 times rarer than gold, while palladium is 30 times less commonplace by comparison.

What are MLCC and why are people obsessed with them?

Capacitors are an important part of electronic circuits. They store energy in an electric field and release it when needed. This makes them perfect for power supplies and voltage regulators. Capacitors can also be used to filter out noise from electronic signals. This is important for PCBs, where the signals need to be clean and accurate. Multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are usually the best choice for applications where small capacitances need to be met. They are used in op-amp circuits, filters, and more.

Palladium is used as an electrode in multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). The easiest way to remove these parts from PCBs is to de-solder them or a chisel, flat head screw driver or air hammer. As palladium is mixed with silver, dilute nitric acid is very easy to use to dissolve it. MLCCs contain 25% palladium and 75% silver, 

Capacitors are also a major component of e-waste. They can contain harmful chemicals that can leach into the environment if not properly disposed of.

Other Places to Find Palladium

• Palladium jewellery scrap such as wires, grindings, and bench sweepings.
• Palladium-plated jewellery, including rings, and bracelets. (Palladium can be plated onto other metals to make jewellery that looks white and shiny and resists tarnishing.)
• Palladium sponges, flakes, and other scrap used in plating and manufacturing operations.
• Sputtering targets used in electroplating operations. (Note that not all sputtering targets contain palladium, but some do.)
• Palladium catalysts used in petroleum refining and other industrial operations.
• Palladium resins used in chemical processing and manufacturing.
• Dental palladium scrap. This category of palladium scrap is often misunderstood, because in the past, palladium has been alloyed with gold and other metals to fabricate dental appliances. To separate the palladium from other metals, special processes are used by a precious metal refinery like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners.

Top 5 Reasons to Scrap and Recycle Palladium

Well, you now know all about the stuff. Now for why you should collect this (fools) gold to your hearts content (or should you?)

• Palladium is worth more than gold currently (Feb 2022)

• A lot of people are interested in palladium now that many countries aim to stop making and selling cars that run on petrol and diesel. This is a lot like when the price of metals used to make lithium-ion batteries in electric cars went up because there was more demand for the metals.

• Before electric cars become the dominant vehicle, manufacturers are looking for other ways to cut down on pollution. Palladium is in high demand because people are looking for ways to cut down on pollution. The price of palladium rose almost 50% in 2019 because it was thought there might be a shortage of the metal. This was especially true in places like China, where there are strict rules to cut down on pollution from cars. People in Europe bought fewer diesel cars recently, which mostly use platinum. Instead, they bought petrol-powered cars, which use palladium.

• MLCCs are in abundance if you know where to look. They are small and easy to collect.

• Smelting your precious metals at home is fun

The Pandemic of 2020 and Palladium

There was an unexpected and big drop in the demand for MLCCs in 2019. This continued into the first quarter of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused even more chaos in the market. There are a lot of different reasons why the market is so unstable right now, but the main one is that a lot of manufacturers and contract manufacturers kept more parts on hand than they usually do.

As a result of the unexpected lull in business in 2019, MLCC producers had to cut back on the number of people working at their factories. Last two quarters, demand has started to pick up again in the Far East and North America and Europe, but not as much as it did in the last two quarters. Because there aren’t enough people who have been fully trained, MLCC producers haven’t been able to respond quickly enough to the rise in customer orders. It has taken a long time to get production back up and running. In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak has caused problems with production cycles, transportation, and logistics chains. This has made things even worse.

The MLCC business is, of course, a very choppy one, with a lot of sudden changes in demand. There are high points followed by low points of the same size. As a result, it is very important to always stay up to date with the changes that affect it.

Where to Find Information on How to Refine Palladium

To be honest YouTube is full of videos. It’s a simple case of the right search terms. This useful video from OwlTech shows you can get about 15g of Palladium from 1.4kg of capacitors. There are websites like ‘GoldenScrap‘ who also have useful articles on this side of recycling.

Is it worth it? See here for the debate.