Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from recycled platinum group metals (PGMs) are up to 95% lower than for freshly mined PGMs, so there's a lot of focus on getting recycled ounces, says SFA Oxford CEO Henk de Hoop.

Already one carmaker wants only recycled PGMs from 2030, adds De Hoop, who was talking to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview on the biggest takeaways from this year’s SFA Oxford platinum lectures. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“We see a lot of activity and companies wanting to enter into the recycling chain. It's already quite busy on the catalyst side for the exhaust business and even in the oil refining business, many closed loops are already in place and companies wanting to enter recycling to secure metal for their future operations as well,” he adds.

At the same time, the hydrogen economy is presenting very broad and varied opportunities for PGMs, well beyond electrolysers, for which iridium thrifting has been hugely successful, and fuel cells.

“We're talking up to 80% less iridium,” De Hoop reports

The iridium ensures that green hydrogen becomes affordable, available and widely applied in order to use the technologies that consume platinum, which is the sustainable metal for the PGM industry in South Africa.

It is estimated that about $500-billion will be spent by 2030 on hydrogen economy initiatives.

“There's a lot of momentum that was never there before,” says De Hoop.

This year’s platinum lectures were focused on the hydrogen economy.

“Firstly, it's very broad based, it's diving into all areas of the hydrogen economy, well beyond electrolysers and fuel cells.

“Secondly, it’s still uncertain in what that will translate to for PGM demand. It’s positive, but the sheer scale of that momentum is as yet difficult to translate into PGM numbers and at the moment, we’re doing a big project on trying to get some clarity on that.”

Mining Weekly: What new fields are emerging that require the catalysis that platinum group metals are able to provide?

De Hoop: A wide range of industries are being developed and ramped up that are requiring quite big production volumes, such as the production of ammonia, methanol or e-fuels. In a variety of these applications, PGM catalysis is required. As that ramps up in coexistence with other PGM consuming industries in the hydrogen fuel cell sector, we expect new sectors of demand to become increasingly important for PGMS. Some PGM catalyst manufacturers are starting to develop their own core business initiatives in the hydrogen economy to offset some of the maturation of their own vehicle exhaust catalyst businesses. We now need to get a good handle on the scale of new demand for palladium that can emerge, and for rhodium – although for rhodium, it's probably less clear at this stage than it is for palladium.

What role can PGMs play when it comes to drug production and pharmaceutical medications?

We had a great presentation from Heraeus and following the Covid pandemic, it’s clear that fast methods of scaling up active pharmaceutical ingredients – APIs – are becoming increasingly important for governments around the world, and PGMS can play a role in this great business opportunity. Heraeus spoke not only about the consumption of PGMs in the medication itself, but also the providing the catalysis to produce these medicines fast, at scale and economically. In a way it’s exciting. We shouldn't forget, though, that the timelines to get new medicines on the markets are normally quite long, and the actual volume of PGMs consumed in those applications is not going to change the future direction. That will very much have to come from the hydrogen economy rather than these niche applications. They help and they’re great, but they're not necessarily going to change the economics of producing PGMs.

What should be done to improve the supply of PGMs by stepping up recycling?

PGMS are very recyclable. There are processes where some of the PGMs get lost, but, for example, the exhaust cata...