You forgot the one metal that is the reason for cat theft...Rhodium. In April of 2021 when cat theft was a rampant problem everywhere, prior to all the crackdowns on scrap yards and requiring a paper trail to recycle, rhodium hit it's peak price @ $28,775/oz. In June of 2024 it was back down to $4663/oz.
I was working for a Nissan dealer at the time and man! The amount of cats we were replacing was crazy! An Oriellys fleet van got hit 4 times lol like in a two month span
@@dom3827 He said "it's got a bunch of special metals in it; platinum, palladium" So I went on to mention that he didn't mention rhodium, which is the super rare metal whose skyrocketing price we can lend to the theft of hundreds of thousands of catalytic converters and millions of dollars wasted all thanks to crackheads. They created a viscous cycle, stealing them increases demand, increased demand increases their scrap value, increasing scrap value increases the number of people who are stealing them.
Do you have any of that material to spare? cuz the junkyards won't sell it to me, and I'm not a thief. Buying a new catalytic converter is more expensive then getting a jar of palladium on carbon from a chemistry supply house. I need it for some home chemistry hobby stuff...
Why? Does burning chlorine gas blowing it through one of those look any different than burning anything else? Or do you mean using chlorine instead of oxygen as the oxidizer with the gas and turn the gas into nice oZone destroying chlorocarbons?
FYI, it doesn't burn unburnt fuel, it converts some of the more toxic substances into non toxic ones, e.g. carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide. Also, as it's a catalyst, it never stops converting said toxic gasses. Without a doubt, one of the best inventions/discoveries in recent history.
@basecius if you're picky, not in any way is it burnt in the cat. Furthermore, its not unburt fuel in any way. CO reacts chemically with the rhodium which results in CO2. The platinum also acts as a catalyst I believe, for other chemical reactions that help
@BuckyOhYeah Gasoline is long carbon (C) chains with lots of hydrogen (H) and maybe a bit of oxygen (O) attached. When you add enough O2 and heat it, it burns and becomes CO2 and H20. If there's not enough O2, you'll get an incomplete burn. Some carbohydrate molecules may be completely untouched, while others burn like above. But you'll also get incompletely burned molecules. It comes in different shapes. Burn off the H, and the C "skeleton" of the chains clump together as soot. (Very simplified, it's not that clean.) Burn of some of the carbon atoms from the chains, and leave shorter carbon chains in the exhaust. And finally, carbon atoms that isn't fully oxidized to CO2, but instead end up as CO. That CO "would like" to get to the lower energy form of CO2, but it couldn't find any O2 while it was hot enough for the process to happen. So the CO IS an incompletely burnt part of the fuel. And it can still be considered a fuel. CO in higher concentrations than you get in typical car exhausts will burn with a flame, and has historically been used as fuel in cars. The low concentrations in typical car exhaust isn't enough though, so you need a catalyst to keep the reaction going.
@@basecius co isn't a fuel, it's the byproduct of the fuel burning, right? I'm still fairly sure it doesn't burn unspent fuel, but I'm gonna do more googling than the 5 mins I did before posting.
@@BuckyOhYeah It's normally seen as a byproduct, and not a fuel. But even if it's usually unwanted, it still has the properties of a fuel. Back in WWII, when gasoline deliveries was unreliable, it was common to convert vehicles to run on wood. Here in Sweden it was called "gengas", I think it's called "producer gas" in English (maybe "wood gas"). They burned wood in a container with a very bad supply of air. This will produce a lot of gasses that is incompletely burnt fuel. These gasses were then used as fuel for the car. It was dirty, dangerous, put more wear on the motor, and gave a reduced power output, but the fuel was easily available.
@@ShadeTreeGarage I think he means lengthwise, back when I was a young tool and wanted to increase my horsepower by increasing exhaust flow rate by reducing the amount of constriction caused by the catalytic converter, but without removing it totally. Using a 3-foot long 5/8 drill bit. And I didn't put two and two together until just now, but I did backfire a lot! ... could have just been from increasing my fuel pressure too, who knows, I was young tool who didn't know what he was doing and that car has long since been parted out (since 1979 I'm pretty sure every part has been replaced, even the frame, a very long interesting story, it was a car that deserves a biography!)
@@petevenuti7355I see! So doing the old hollowing out essentially. I recently found out on a 87 corvette that the insulation around the ceramic material inside the converter is high in asbestos, yet no listing anywhere. WILD! Thanks for your further explanation!
@@ShadeTreeGarage I'm not surprised about the asbestos, I can't tell you how many microwaves I scrapped before I found out the pink insulation around the magnetron was made of beryllium oxide! They don't use that anymore, if you look it up you'll see why, but it's way worse than asbestos and it wasn't mentioned that it was in there until after they stopped using it! Just like the dioxin in the milk coming from the paper making process of paper milk cartons, no one mentioned it was there until they changed the paper making process to fix the problem and all the milk that was affected already expired.
in the catalytic converter, 2 chemical reactions are produced by which polluting emissions are reduced, one of reduction and one of oxidation, and the main result after the two reactions is H2O water, the rare metals you are talking about are destroyed if the catalyst exceeds 500 degrees Celsius, why don't you say that you heated the ceramic piece before the filming started
My cat walks all over my keyboard...
The catalytic converter is not a filter. It super heats any unburnt gasses and is designed to then burn them.
@@keithalexander5998 meant filter like the design of the materiel physically, I believe the video explained how a car burns things. This isn’t a DPF
Watching the whole video before commenting makes you look like less of a dumbass fyi
@@ShadeTreeGarageyou are right and he misunderstood you
"burning" excess CO and HC is only part of the function, the other part is turning NOx into N2
Soooo…. A filter?
i knew cats were robots
Very cool demonstration, and a very good explanation as to how your cats work. Good job bro.GOD BLESS
Had no idea... That's pretty sweet man! I appreciate you taking the time to show us!
I opened up my cat and I don’t see these anywhere- wtf?!
You forgot the one metal that is the reason for cat theft...Rhodium. In April of 2021 when cat theft was a rampant problem everywhere, prior to all the crackdowns on scrap yards and requiring a paper trail to recycle, rhodium hit it's peak price @ $28,775/oz. In June of 2024 it was back down to $4663/oz.
crazy.. didn’t know that
I was working for a Nissan dealer at the time and man! The amount of cats we were replacing was crazy! An Oriellys fleet van got hit 4 times lol like in a two month span
Only Rhodium?
What about Platinum?
@@dom3827 He said "it's got a bunch of special metals in it; platinum, palladium"
So I went on to mention that he didn't mention rhodium, which is the super rare metal whose skyrocketing price we can lend to the theft of hundreds of thousands of catalytic converters and millions of dollars wasted all thanks to crackheads. They created a viscous cycle, stealing them increases demand, increased demand increases their scrap value, increasing scrap value increases the number of people who are stealing them.
Really Cool video 📸
MY ENTIRE EXHAUST RUNS RED HOT. 😊
Fffff... Good to know! Thanks!
Wow, thats crazy
Every day’s a school day 😎
basically lads, if you can legally remove these, do it
Do you have any of that material to spare? cuz the junkyards won't sell it to me, and I'm not a thief. Buying a new catalytic converter is more expensive then getting a jar of palladium on carbon from a chemistry supply house.
I need it for some home chemistry hobby stuff...
Hit me up on instagram @ shadetreegarage and I can help you out!
you building an arc reactor there, chief? don't forget to wear your dosimeter :)
@@experimentalcyborg hahahaha , I wish...
a cat is designed to incinerate all the bad stuff or at least most of it anyway
So if you don't have a match you can use a piece of this and just put some gas through it and voila you have a fire
Who would go around breaking cats? That's just cruel
poor cat
Get out the bleach and hcl.
Why? Does burning chlorine gas blowing it through one of those look any different than burning anything else? Or do you mean using chlorine instead of oxygen as the oxidizer with the gas and turn the gas into nice oZone destroying chlorocarbons?
FYI, it doesn't burn unburnt fuel, it converts some of the more toxic substances into non toxic ones, e.g. carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide.
Also, as it's a catalyst, it never stops converting said toxic gasses. Without a doubt, one of the best inventions/discoveries in recent history.
Well, if you're picky: carbon monoxide IS incompletely burnt fuel, which is burnt in the cat.
@basecius if you're picky, not in any way is it burnt in the cat. Furthermore, its not unburt fuel in any way. CO reacts chemically with the rhodium which results in CO2. The platinum also acts as a catalyst I believe, for other chemical reactions that help
@BuckyOhYeah
Gasoline is long carbon (C) chains with lots of hydrogen (H) and maybe a bit of oxygen (O) attached. When you add enough O2 and heat it, it burns and becomes CO2 and H20.
If there's not enough O2, you'll get an incomplete burn. Some carbohydrate molecules may be completely untouched, while others burn like above. But you'll also get incompletely burned molecules. It comes in different shapes.
Burn off the H, and the C "skeleton" of the chains clump together as soot. (Very simplified, it's not that clean.)
Burn of some of the carbon atoms from the chains, and leave shorter carbon chains in the exhaust.
And finally, carbon atoms that isn't fully oxidized to CO2, but instead end up as CO. That CO "would like" to get to the lower energy form of CO2, but it couldn't find any O2 while it was hot enough for the process to happen. So the CO IS an incompletely burnt part of the fuel. And it can still be considered a fuel. CO in higher concentrations than you get in typical car exhausts will burn with a flame, and has historically been used as fuel in cars.
The low concentrations in typical car exhaust isn't enough though, so you need a catalyst to keep the reaction going.
@@basecius co isn't a fuel, it's the byproduct of the fuel burning, right? I'm still fairly sure it doesn't burn unspent fuel, but I'm gonna do more googling than the 5 mins I did before posting.
@@BuckyOhYeah It's normally seen as a byproduct, and not a fuel. But even if it's usually unwanted, it still has the properties of a fuel. Back in WWII, when gasoline deliveries was unreliable, it was common to convert vehicles to run on wood. Here in Sweden it was called "gengas", I think it's called "producer gas" in English (maybe "wood gas"). They burned wood in a container with a very bad supply of air. This will produce a lot of gasses that is incompletely burnt fuel. These gasses were then used as fuel for the car. It was dirty, dangerous, put more wear on the motor, and gave a reduced power output, but the fuel was easily available.
Which is why if you're a young tool you drill holes through them to let fuel backfire
@@FartSuckerUmad never heard of this method lol
@@FartSuckerUmad are you saying my drilling holes into the center? It will do this? lol
@@ShadeTreeGarage I think he means lengthwise, back when I was a young tool and wanted to increase my horsepower by increasing exhaust flow rate by reducing the amount of constriction caused by the catalytic converter, but without removing it totally. Using a 3-foot long 5/8 drill bit.
And I didn't put two and two together until just now, but I did backfire a lot! ... could have just been from increasing my fuel pressure too, who knows, I was young tool who didn't know what he was doing and that car has long since been parted out (since 1979 I'm pretty sure every part has been replaced, even the frame, a very long interesting story, it was a car that deserves a biography!)
@@petevenuti7355I see! So doing the old hollowing out essentially.
I recently found out on a 87 corvette that the insulation around the ceramic material inside the converter is high in asbestos, yet no listing anywhere. WILD!
Thanks for your further explanation!
@@ShadeTreeGarage I'm not surprised about the asbestos, I can't tell you how many microwaves I scrapped before I found out the pink insulation around the magnetron was made of beryllium oxide! They don't use that anymore, if you look it up you'll see why, but it's way worse than asbestos and it wasn't mentioned that it was in there until after they stopped using it! Just like the dioxin in the milk coming from the paper making process of paper milk cartons, no one mentioned it was there until they changed the paper making process to fix the problem and all the milk that was affected already expired.
You don’t know what you’re talking about
lets hear what you know big mannn
in the catalytic converter, 2 chemical reactions are produced by which polluting emissions are reduced, one of reduction and one of oxidation, and the main result after the two reactions is H2O water, the rare metals you are talking about are destroyed if the catalyst exceeds 500 degrees Celsius, why don't you say that you heated the ceramic piece before the filming started