Recovery and refining of precious metals from hydrocarbon petroleum chemical and petrochemical processes sabin recovers pgms and other precious metals from spent catalysts with soluble and insoluble alumina silica alumina and zeolite o pgms platinum palladium ruthenium and rhodium rhenium gold silver and other precious metals. Precious metals refiners typically use one of two methods to recover and refine platinum group metals pgms from spent catalysts pgms include platinum pt palladium pd ruthenium ru and rhodium rh rhenium re which is not considered a pgm is also present in many spent catalysts and is a valuable precious metal too. Recovering and refining precious metals p recious metals are perhaps among the most recycled commodities on earth mainly because their value usually makes it worthwhile to spend time and effort to recover them the process of recovering and refining precious metals has been around for a long time but even today it remains. Its purpose is to cover the various methods of recovery and refining of precious metals both primary sources placer gold black sand and ores and secondary sources scrap jewelry electronic scrap old films buffings spent plating and stripping solutions catalytic automobile converters and old eyeglass frames are covered