A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF POWER SUPPLY PARAMETERS ON METAL FLOW VELOCITY IN THE CHANNEL OF A DEVICE FOR WASHING OUT PRECIOUS METALS FROM OF THE AUTOMOTIVE CATALYTIC CONVERTERS

摘要

The lifetime of a catalytic converters is limited. Today's environmental regulations require that used converters should be properly recycled as a valuable source of precious metals, Al_2O_3 and steel scrap. The precious metals used in the devices perform catalytic functions. They are suspended in a ceramic or metal carrier. This paper deals with the recovery of precious metals from automotive converters using a metal-collector method. In order to speed up the washout of the precious metals from the capillary structure of the converter, the movement of the liquid metal-collector was forced by the electromagnetic field. The research was aimed at improving the effective velocity of the liquid metal flow through the carrier by means of a device with a double windings. Various ways of power supply were considered. The calculation experiment was performed as a weakly coupled analysis of the electromagnetic field and flow field.