Granulation in precious metal recycling
Granulation is a critical process in precious metal recycling, enabling the efficient recovery of valuable metals from complex scrap materials. By reducing waste into small, uniform particles, granulation improves metal separation and increases recovery rates in downstream processes.
Granulators use high-speed rotating blades to cut, shear, and size-reduce materials into consistent particle sizes. This uniformity is essential for optimizing metal recovery techniques such as physical separation and smelting.
Automated granulation systems
Our automated granulation system enhances performance by screening and separating steel and aluminum materials through magnetic and eddy current separation. This ensures that precious metal-bearing waste streams are properly prepared for maximum recovery efficiency and consistent processing results.
Materials we process through granulation
Granulation is ideal for processing solid, heterogeneous materials where precious metals are embedded in plastics, ceramics, or base metals.
We handle a wide range of precious metal scrap and recycling streams, including:
- Electronic scrap (e-waste recycling)
- Wire and cable recycling
- Automotive and industrial electronics recycling
- Plated metal scrap processing
Electronic scrap (e-waste)
- Printed circuit boards (PCBs)
- Connectors and pins
- CPUs and memory chips
Precious metals and other recovered include; Gold, Silver, Palladium, Platinum and Copper.
Wire and cables
- Insulated copper wire
- Specialty and telecom cables with plated contacts
These materials may contain recoverable copper, gold, silver, and other precious metals from e-scrap.
Automotive and industrial electronics
- Control modules
- Sensors and relays
- Switchgear components (telecommunications)
- Connectors
These components often contain small but valuable amounts of gold, silver, and copper.
Plated metal scrap
- Gold- or silver-plated connectors and hardware
- Electronic pins and lead frames
Size reduction increases surface area, enhancing the effectiveness of chemical pyrometallurgical metal recovery processes.
Know your metals
The Know your metals resource helps you understand how precious metals are used across industries. Explore each metal’s commercial applications, the types of waste streams it commonly appears in, and the recovery technologies used to reclaim it.
Au
Gold
Ag
Silver
Pt
Platinum
Pd
Palladium
Rh
Rhodium
Ir
Iridium
Gold
Gold is a critical precious metal valued for its excellent conductivity, corrosion resistance, and stability, with extensive use in semiconductor fabrication, electroplating, connector fabrication and assembly, medical device and jewelry manufacturing.
Gold frequently occurs in industrial waste streams such as spent plating solutions, filters, resin, sludges, stamping scrap, contact pins and karat jewelry.
Silver
Silver is a widely used precious metal known for its high electrical conductivity, antimicrobial properties, and reflectivity, making it essential in microelectronics, medical applications, film coating, chemical processing, jewelry manufacturing, electroplating and stamping industries.
Silver-bearing waste streams often include spent plating baths, filters, sludges and stampings.
Explore silver-bearing waste streams:
Platinum
Platinum is a critical precious metal widely used in pharmaceutical catalysts, jewelry manufacturing, automotive catalytic converters, fuel cell/electrolyzer applications, fiberglass manufacturing, and the aircraft/aerospace, microelectronics and medical industries.
Due to its chemical stability and catalytic properties, platinum frequently appears in industrial waste streams such as spent catalyst, acidic process solutions, plating baths, filter media, implantable medical components, fiberglass bushings and refractory, fuel cell MEAs, thermocouple wire, machining kerf, shavings and turnings.
Explore platinum-bearing waste streams:
- Jewellery manufacture
- Discarded electronic devices and electronics manufacturing
- Electroplating operations
- Medical device manufacturing and healthcare operations
- Defense manufacturing and maintenance operations
- Glass manufacturing
- Pharmaceuticals manufacture
- Industrial catalysts
- Automotive catalytic converters
- Nitric acid manufacture
Palladium
Palladium is a precious metal widely used in automotive catalytic converters, specialty chemical catalyst, conductive pastes, microelectronics/ceramic capacitors.
Owing to its excellent catalytic performance and electrical conductivity, palladium is commonly found in industrial waste streams such as spent catalysts, sludges, filter media, fired/green ceramic, thick film wipes & jars, canned/decanned catalytic converters and spent environmental catalysts.
Explore palladium-bearing waste streams:
- Jewellery manufacture
- Discarded electronic devices and electronics manufacturing
- Electroplating operations
- Medical device manufacturing and healthcare operations
- Defense manufacturing and maintenance operations
- Pharmaceuticals manufacture
- Industrial catalysts
- Automotive catalytic converters
- Nitric acid manufacture
Rhodium
Rhodium is a rare and valuable precious metal primarily used in automotive catalytic converters, chemical catalysts, fiberglass manufacturing, and plating industries.
Its high reflectivity and resistance to corrosion result in rhodium being found in waste streams including catalytic converters, spent plating baths, filters, fiberglass bushings and refractory.
Explore rhodium-bearing waste streams:
Iridium
Iridium is an extremely durable and corrosion-resistant precious metal used in chemical processing equipment, fuel cell manufacturing, specialty catalyst, and medical devices.
Due to its use in high-temperature and highly corrosive environments, iridium is commonly found in waste streams including electrolyzer scrap, spent coating solutions, spent catalyst and filters, medical device components such as electrodes, marker bands and cath tips.
Explore iridium-bearing waste streams:
Integrated processing across departments
Granulation processing at our facilities is fully integrated with Sibanye-Stillwater Recycling operations’ broader precious metal recycling capabilities, including mechanical reduction, thermal reduction, wet chemistry, and refining. This integrated approach ensures optimized recovery pathways and consistent valuation outcomes.
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Mechanical reduction
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Thermal reduction
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Wet chemistry
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Precious metal melt
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Electronic material classification
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Auto catalyst recycling
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Bead blasting
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Cleaning & recovery
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Granulation
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Transportation & logistics
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Analytical laboratory
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Partner with Sibanye-Stillwater recycling operations
We support OEMs, converter buyers, and recycling partners with customized catalytic converter programs aligned to business and sustainability goals. Our experienced teams collaborate closely with customers to maximize precious metal recovery, ensure compliance, and convert converter material into measurable value.
