hello and welcome to converter unknown episode number two I am your host Aaron Young and we’re going to talk about catalytic converters today uh really what they are what’s inside of them what’s inside of the contents that are inside of the catalytic converter how they work what they look like how many are on a vehicle Etc so without wasting any more of your time this is going to be a quick podcast today uh just explaining what they are so I’m going to dive right into when it all started so the Clean Air Act of 1970 really started the the catalytic converter coming on to the scene and they worked so good at converting the exhaust that comes out of the vehicle the vehicle’s motor the bad hydrocarbons carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides in that exhaust are converted by the precious metals that are inside of that monolith the platinum platium and rhodium into less bad hydrocarbons the carbon dioxide nitrogen and water vapor a funny note and I’m sure right when I said water vapor you were thinking oh I’ve seen vehicles have water you know pouring out of their tailpipe you know until

I started into this industry I had no idea the magic that a catalytic converter actually does so anyway that’s actually the catalytic converter working when you see the water vapor or the water just coming out of the tailpipe of the vehicle so when that monolith is heated up like I said before it converts those gases and that’s also why when you start your vehicle for a few minutes until the vehicle gets to operating temperature that catalytic converter is not working so that is the downfall I suppose if you wanted to give a catalytic converter a downfall is that it takes a few minutes to work that’s why you smell that smell for a few minutes when you start up the vehicle but let’s move into what they look like and maybe the types of catalytic converters that there are so there’s many different shapes and sizes and quantities that come on vehicles for the most part they’re probably the size of a loaf of bread is a standard uh catalytic converter on a vehicle and there’s also catalytic converters that are manifold cats that are bolted directly to the motor and the effectiveness of

both are are very very similar you know whether that gas reaches it a foot away or directly off the motor um really doesn’t matter but you know in future episodes we’re going to discuss theft of these and I would argue that if there were all manifold cats on vehicles this theft wouldn’t be a problem but I don’t want to pollute this episode with the theft issue because that will be probably the antithesis of this entire program it’s talking about you know where do we go with the theft issue but anyway so you know moving right along into maybe the types of catalytic converters that that there are there’s a ceramic cat and there’s also a metallic cat the ceramic cat is the honeycomb what we call honeycomb and those thousands of little ports have Platinum Palladium and rhodium plated inside of those little ports and as the exhaust passes through that’s when the magic happens and that conversion takes place and the same with the metallic cat a metallic cat’s just metal it’s what we call a foil and it’s rolled it’s often a high flow cat you’re often going to see those on

high performance Vehicles because they tend to breathe a lot better on those high performance Vehicles so it’s it’s it’s interesting that you get a lot of individuals that you know they let us know they have a Lamborghini or their status of Range Rover or whatever they’re trying to sell and they’re automatically thinking that because that vehicle cost two hundred thousand dollars that they have a cat that’s worth you know a couple a thousand bucks if not more because retail tells them that well the Commodities side is different and the effectiveness of that catalytic converter on a Lamborghini it has different it serves different purposes so my point was that often those cats aren’t really as valuable as say a Honda or a Kia cat that their main Focus besides safety of course is is being a good Steward of the environment so they’re catalytic converters are loaded with pot and platy monrodium so you know that reaction is one or not 100 but you know 98 effectiveness I think that’s also a great segue into where Platinum Palladium and rhodium come from I won’t get into the mining details but platinum and Palladium and

rhodium are mined in two locations really the mass the mass majority of it is South Africa and Russia and you know if you’ve been following any type of news you know what’s going on in Russia so you know the Commodities Market’s been kind of a roller coaster in terms of of pricing but the reason why that’s important is because the recycling of catalytic converters is the main source of these precious metals coming back into the system not only being reused in Auto catalysts but amongst thousands of other things that we use in our everyday lives so when people give Solutions and we’ll talk about this later but a solution people give to you know the theft issue is that we should stop recycling them well there needs to be a lot more research done and that comment is is extremely false you can look up what platinum and Palladium are used for and realize the very phone that you’re using to listen to my podcast the microchips have Palladium in it and the main reason that these metals are used is because of the durability against Heat against high heat so I’m no precious

metals expert but I do know during my research that I have come to conclude that the recycling of these is really really important to our future are our green future for that matter whether it’s microchips cancer medication the batteries that were going to be converting over to there is research going on and and stuff about you know what can replace these certain Metals but nothing really mainstream has come of it just yet and what I would do is go ahead and look up Platinum Group metals and check out the prices um you know today alone you’re looking at an ounce of platinum is 908 dollars an ounce of Palladium is 21.73 and an ounce of rhodium is thirteen thousand dollars and you know these two metals the Palladium and um rhodium are more valuable than gold itself so you know I could Rabbit Trail all day on this on this subject but I definitely don’t want to bore you all so I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this short podcast today and as we move forward we’re going to interview um people in the industry and uh law enforcement and

how they perceive the industry and recyclers and how catalytic converters are a different Revenue stream for them and the mom and pop garage shops that you know take that catalytic converter and make a little bit of money on it all these different Avenues we probably have years of content ahead of us and and hopefully you guys like it so until next time thank you for listening my I it’s been my pleasure uh my name is Aaron Young and I was your host today have a great day