Overview of Precious Metal Content Analysis Methods in Automotive Catalytic Converter

Abstract

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, people’s concern of pollution issues arising. Vehicles, as the most important means of transportation, its exhaust emission has received considerable attention. The catalytic converter is able to purify harmful substances in exhaust gas. The absolute content of precious metals in the catalytic converter dominates the exhaust gas purification effect. Accurate detection of precious metal content is of great significance for controlling the cost of catalysts, ensuring catalytic performance and recovering precious metals from spent catalysts. We herein summarized several instruments for precious metals content exploration, such as X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF), atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS), inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer (ICP) and spectrophotometer. In this thesis, the feasibility of using various devices for characterizing precious metal content in catalytic converters is analyzed and their strengths or weaknesses are elaborated.