A method of treating rhodium materials

Abstract

A method of treating a material comprising rhodium and a base metal by placing the material in water, passing chlorine through the water thus chlorinating the water, adding hydrochloric acid to the chlorinated water and heating to dissolve the base metal to form a leach liquor and separating the leach liquor from the solid which comprised rhodium. The rhodium can then be recovered by dissolving it in hydrochloric acid. The base metal can comprise nickel, iron, copper, tin and / or chromium and the material can also comprise other platinum group metals which also dissolve in the leach liquor and then recovered therefrom. Fig. 1