Catalytic converters
Catalytic converter recycling,
end to end.
Collected from RVSF centres, traders, dismantlers and OEM production waste. Decanned, assayed and refined under contract — with the certificate and the compliance that has to travel with it.
The value is in the coating, not the shell
A spent catalytic converter is not a lump of metal. It is a ceramic or metallic substrate carrying a thin washcoat, and that coating holds platinum, palladium and rhodium measured in grammes per unit. The shell is worth its weight in stainless steel and no more; everything of value is in the coating. We collect converters across India, decan and process them here, and supply the recovered material to refineries under contract.
Last year we recycled 1,45,006 catalytic converters. The stated target for the coming year is to double that. That volume is the reason material other recyclers leave behind — two-wheeler units in particular — is worth processing at all: the fixed cost of decanning, sampling and assay is shared across the lot rather than carried by the unit.
Three metals do the work
Three platinum-group metals do the work in an autocatalyst, and a converter carries some combination of them depending on the engine it was fitted to.
| Metal | Symbol | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | Pt | The original autocatalyst metal and still the dominant one in diesel units. Oxidises carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons, and tolerates sulphur better than palladium does. |
| Palladium | Pd | Took over most petrol applications. It does the same oxidation work as platinum and, for two decades, did it more cheaply. |
| Rhodium | Rh | The scarcest of the three by a wide margin, and the reason a converter can be worth what it is. It reduces nitrogen oxides, and almost nothing else will. |
Which of the three a unit carries, and how much of each, is exactly what the assay answers — and exactly what a price list keyed to the make and model of the car cannot.
Where does our material come from?
Converters have a theft problem worldwide, so any serious recycler has to be able to say where its material came from. These are our four channels, and each one is a standing arrangement rather than a spot trade.
Registered vehicle scrapping facilities
RVSF centres working under the government’s vehicle scrappage framework, where end-of-life vehicles are dismantled against a documented process and every unit can be traced back to a chassis.
Converter traders
Established traders who aggregate from workshops and yards and want a buyer who settles on a measured assay instead of a price list keyed to the badge.
Vehicle dismantlers
Dismantling yards across Delhi NCR and the wider network, collected on a schedule that suits the yard rather than the truck.
OEM production waste
Off-specification and production-waste converters from vehicle manufacturing, handled under the confidentiality that work requires.
What do we do with it?
Collection is the easy part. These are the things that decide whether a consignment settles well.
Recycling certificates and environmental compliance
Every consignment is handled to the environmental compliance expected under government guidelines, and recycling certificates are issued for the material taken in. For an RVSF, a fleet or an OEM, that certificate is the part of the transaction that has to stand up in an audit years later.
Decanning and refinery-feed preparation
Converters are decanned and the recovered material is prepared as refinery feed — the form a refiner can actually charge. That preparation is what turns a mixed heap of units into one sampled, assayable lot with a single number attached to it.
In-house washcoat extraction
Two-wheeler converters carry very little precious metal, and for years that put them below the cost of processing. We strip the coating off the substrate ourselves, so what travels to the refinery is concentrated material rather than mostly ceramic — which is what makes recovery from those units viable.
Independent laboratory analysis
Where a lot needs critical-minerals analysis, or where a supplier does not accept our settlement proposal, an independent laboratory is appointed as umpire. The umpire result settles the trade, whichever way it goes.
Export logistics, run in-house
We sit inside the largest logistics hub in Asia and we move the freight ourselves. Consignments are collected from anywhere in India and shipped onward to the refinery under our own arrangements and our own export registration.
Contracted refinery offtake
Recovered material goes to refineries we hold contracts with in Europe, Korea and Japan. A contract matters more here than it sounds: it is the difference between a settled price schedule and hoping for a buyer once the lot is ready.
How is a lot settled?
Five steps, in order. Almost every dispute in this trade happens at step two, and it is the one worth being slow about.
Receive and identify
Units are counted in and identified by type — ceramic or metallic, petrol or diesel, two-wheeler or four. Those categories, not the badge on the car, are what drive the grade.
Decan and homogenise
The substrate is removed from the shell and milled to a homogeneous powder. An assay is only as good as the sample it came from, and a sample is only representative if the lot was genuinely uniform first.
Sample and assay
A representative sample is drawn and assayed for platinum, palladium and rhodium. The result is expressed in grammes per tonne of material, and it is the number the rest of the transaction is built on.
Settlement proposal
Payable value is calculated from the assay against the metal prices agreed for the lot, less treatment and refining charges. The proposal goes to the supplier in writing, with the assay attached.
Umpire, if it is disputed
If the supplier does not accept the assay, an independent laboratory is appointed as umpire and the umpire figure settles the lot. Nobody has to take our word for it.
The same lot, through the plant
You are welcome to come and watch a consignment be decanned and sampled — it explains this better than a website can. Until you do, this is what happens to it.
Where does the material go after we are done?
Recovered material goes to refineries we hold contracts with in Europe, Korea and Japan — among the best in the world at separating these metals. A contract matters more here than it might sound: it is the difference between a settled price schedule and hoping for a buyer when the lot is ready.
We handle the logistics ourselves. Sitting inside the largest logistics hub in Asia is what lets us collect a consignment from anywhere in India and still move it to the refinery on a schedule we can commit to.
Where a lot needs critical-minerals analysis, or where a supplier does not accept our settlement proposal, an independent laboratory is appointed as umpire and the umpire figure settles the trade. Nobody has to take our word for a number.
Also worth knowing
Forty years in metals, before the first converter
Catalytic converters are what this firm is built around today, but they are not where it started. The family behind Shree Shyam Metals has dealt in metals and scrap for more than forty years — lead-acid batteries, refined lead and non-ferrous material moving through the same yards and the same weighbridges long before anyone in India was paying for a washcoat assay.
That trade still runs alongside the converter business, and we still buy and sell in it. It is not listed on this site as a product line because the site is about converters, but if you are holding scrap as well as converters — which most dismantlers and RVSF centres are — it travels on the same collection and reconciles against the same account. Ask, and we will quote it.
- Over 40 years of family trading in metals and scrap
- Lead-acid batteries, refined lead and non-ferrous material still handled
- Collected alongside a converter consignment, settled on one account
Holding converters?
Tell us what you have — type, rough count and where it is. We will tell you plainly whether it is worth moving, and what the settlement would look like.