News

Platinum Group Metals (PGM) consists of iridium (Ir), osmium (Os), platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), rhodium (Rh) and ruthenium (Ru). Platinum, rhodium, and palladium are heavily used in several applications, from automotive to electronics and chemicals processes, due to their unique characteristics.

In this context, Europe is considered being the global largest consumer of PGM. The old continent has a roughly constant demand every year. In 2019, the European demand was estimated at 72 ton palladium, 79 ton platinum and 4 ton rhodium. Around 84% of the primary supply comes from South Africa and Russia, countries with suboptimal geopolitical stability.

Recycling PGMs from end-of-life products that are widely available in Europe, is a strategy to mitigate the supply risk of PGMs to the European industries. However, Europe’s end-of-life recycling input rate, which is the percentage of overall demand that can be satisfied through secondary raw materials, is estimated at only 21%, insufficient to meet the high European demand.

Thereby, there is still a vast untapped potential (estimated ~60 ton of PGMs per year worth ~€3 billion,) for improving this recycling percentage, notably by enhancing the current recycling rate from autocatalysts (~50-60%) and PCBA (5-10%).

Global demand and supply of palladium*

Global demand and supply of platinum*

Global demand and supply of rhodium*

* Source: Johnson Matthey’s PGM Report 2019 and May 2021