OUR WORK

Commercial


CRIMAREC offers a unique and alternative method to recover PGM from various End-of-Life-products. The method is a small batch-oriented process with significant savings in energy, time and environmental impact. Primary focus is re-covery of Platinum and Palladium from EoL MEAs and diesel particle filters based on silicon carbide. Commercially it is the goal of CRIMAREC to supply refined PGM materials for the manufacturing industry of fuel cells, auto catalyst, power to-X electrolyzers and other fields where PGM -and refined PGM, are used cost effectively and in a form compatible with the capabilities of CRIMAREC.

Technical


The hydro-electrochemical re-covery process, utilizing surface treatment to efficiently extract and dissolve metals, is an alternative and/or supplement to the current, and conventional high volume pyrometallurgical processes. CRIMAREC carries an exclusive license agreement with the University of Southern Denmark and is honored to be one of the partners in a large demonstration project 3R granted by Danish Energy Agency (EUDP). The process is specially designed to handle End-of-Life polymer fuel cell electrodes and products containing high carbon contents such as catalysted silicon carbide filters.

THE PROCESS

The existing and conventional method to re-cover PGM is pyrometallurgy (in short; High temp. burning at around 1500° C). This process requires very large batches of processing which required scrap to transported over large distances, it is extremely energy consuming and technically it has difficulties handling a part of the EoL particle filters from diesel engines which are containing silicon carbide. The large carbon content in Silicon carbide filters deteriorate the insulation in the high temperature kilns and is therefore restricted. The overall rationale is therefore a flexible, energy efficient and environmentally friendly method to re-cover PGM from future sustainable technologies like fuels cells, electrolyzer/Power to X processes and other sources of renewable energy.

The novel method of precious metal re-covery is based on a batch-oriented hydro-electrochemical process which manipulates precious metals (PGM) surface atoms through potentio-dynamic treatments with suitable alternating redox conditions to maximize PGM dissolution and minimize re-deposition. In short this means that the PGM is dissolved in a specially designed reactor system containing an acid composition at a temperature around 100° C. The problem the method solves, is to Recover scarce PGMs, recycle the material from deceasing areas (diesel filters) and reuse them in the manufacturing of new technology products. This will relace usage of material from mining and the conventional high temp. re-cycling method, which are both energy intensive and polluting. The goal is to re-cover, re-cycle and re-use PGM from EoL diesel particle filters in the manufacturing of MEAs for sustainable power generating fuel cell systems and, in the future, to ensure that EoL MEAs also can be re-cycled in an environmentally friendly way.