Platinum at 10 years low BUY or NOT buy

To my understanding (which isn't saying much) it is down to what works better with diesel and what works better with petroleum - they have different dominant hydrocarbons. They both work and historically cost was a factor in what was used in the historical development of the converter.


I don't have enough knowledge to be sure (my relevant science is quite old now), so I am going to outright plagiarise (from Matthey).

"The operating requirements for diesel catalysts are typically very different from those for three-way catalysts.

Platinum has historically been favoured for use in diesel after treatment because the exhaust stream of a diesel engine is a highly oxidising environment and, under these conditions, palladium is readily converted to the less catalytically-active palladium oxide, whereas platinum remains in its metallic form.

By comparison, in the more reducing environment of a gasoline engine’s exhaust, palladium exists as the more catalytically-active palladium metal. As a result, palladium is generally a less active catalyst under diesel conditions than it would be in a gasoline vehicle."

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/doc...ladium-use-in-diesel-oxidation-catalysts-.pdf
 
milled said:
It is not a general matter of which is the better catalyst in general but of what works best with each fuel.
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I never asked that, i only asked why do you think palladium performs better then platinum in petrol cars. As you said "Pd is for petroleum based systems"
 
So basically, palladium gets eaten up in a diesel engine, but platinum stays the same, ie the system will last longer if platinum is used.

On the other hand, palladium is a better catalyst for petrol, meaning that it reduces nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen gases better than Pt.
 
leo25 said:
I never asked that, i only asked why do you think palladium performs better then platinum in petrol cars. As you said "Pd is for petroleum based systems"
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"By comparison, in the more reducing environment of a gasoline engine’s exhaust, palladium exists as the more catalytically-active palladium metal. As a result, palladium is generally a less active catalyst under diesel conditions than it would be in a gasoline vehicle."

I think that works
 
milled said:
"By comparison, in the more reducing environment of a gasoline engine’s exhaust, palladium exists as the more catalytically-active palladium metal. As a result, palladium is generally a less active catalyst under diesel conditions than it would be in a gasoline vehicle."
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Can you please link some references confirming this. Off the top of your head what percentage is palladium a more effective catalyst then platinum in petrol cars?

All the articles i seem to find point to the price being a motive to switch from Pt to Pd for petrol cars.
 
the corollary of that is if it is a less active catalyst, then more crap comes out the exhaust "under diesel conditions"
 
milled said:
the corollary of that is if it is a less active catalyst, then more crap comes out the exhaust "under diesel conditions"
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why do you keep mentioning diesel? I'm not interested in diesel cars, just petrol cars.
 
leo25 said:
Can you please link some references confirming this. Off the top of your head what percentage is palladium a more effective catalyst then platinum in petrol cars?

All the articles i seem to find point to the price being a motive to switch from Pt to Pd for petrol cars.
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Not ducking your question deliberately, but the emissions issue seems to be the clincher. If it is not as robust a catalyst, it follows more emissions come from Pt converters in a diesel vehicle and thus to meet new standards for emissions the cost of modification to meet this standard seems to be too expensive compared to Pd-petrol converters.

See this:
http://www.platinum.matthey.com/documents/new-item/pgm market reports/pgm_market_report_may_2018.pdf

This report looks quite useful for the bigger picture. In short, there is a new EU standard for new vehicles which is bearish for platinum and another in the US which favours Pd. Either way, in this report, rhodium has a bullish outlook.
 
milled said:
Even if we don't include wealthy Chinese diaspora in Taiwan and the Straits, Mainland China (now including HK) constitutes the world's largest economy or very close to it. Western Europe is relatively small and therefore there are less consumers willing to buy PGM jewelry.
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Chinese demand for precious metals is not as large as the pushers want us to believe. One way to gauge the demand is from the performance of Perth mint Lunars vs Queen beasts. European purchasing power for jewellery and gold especially should not be underestimated.
 
Washington reportedly offered its partners in Europe and Asia subsidies to buy non-Chinese equipment so they ditch Huawei or any other Chinese firm, such as ZTE.

so bribery can explain why certain products can be sold at below production costs
just like US paying Israel 3 B each year to cover their budget or other purpose
 
leo25 said:
All the articles i seem to find point to the price being a motive to switch from Pt to Pd for petrol cars.
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I've read much the same but now that the price of Pt is comparatively cheap, you would think that would influence a shift to Pt converters in petrol cars away from Pd, but that isn't obvious to see. So, price alone does not seem to explain it.

To answer your question, leo25, could it be the new emissions standards specific to nitrogen oxides?

Pt has low ability to cataylse NOx (eg NO2 -> N2 + O2) whereas Pd can be a lot better.

Therefore, Pd would be a better option to meet the new standard.

The best PGM for the job though is Rhodium
 
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milled said:
The best PGM for the job though is Rhodium
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Have you seen the Rhodium chart?

GraphEngine.ashx
 
Thanks sg, I know that infomine graphic well and looked at it first in 2008 (that site had a great function for plotting several metals on the same graph and different currencies). Back then there were almost no options to buy rhodium. You could buy powder but that was not easily available or you could buy tiny minted medallions with astronomical markup, so no point.

I bought some bars in the low in 2016 and even then there was a hefty price on top of the spot for a Baird bar. Regrettably I also bought a couple kilo bags of florins, also heavily above spot, though now selling at or close to spot here. The rhodium bars are worth 3 times my buy price.

From memory, Rhodium total world annual supply is about 760000 oz. For platinum that is around 18-20 million oz.

As you see in your graph, when demand is strong, the supply side is quite inelastic and that leads to very rapid price escalation.
 
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