Vortex De-Pollution to represent Tetronics in North America

Vortex De-Pollution and Recycling Equipment, Denver, will represent U.K.-based Tetronics International in North America. Tetronics has been developing plasma arc systems for a number of applications for five decades and has 109 patents granted or pending.

Vortex will focus on the automotive catalytic converter recovery market, where Tetronics’ technology has been used to recover platinum, palladium and rhodium from precious-metal-bearing scrap materials.

“The process chemistry in Tetronics’ plasma arc technology is designed to smelt and preferentially separate the precious metals from the less valuable catalyst material, which is vitrified in to an inert, safe and reusable building product called Plasmarok® in a single step,” according to Vortex. The technology destroys hazardous organic materials, such as dioxins, that may be contained in the material, the company adds.

Vortex is offering additional solutions for catalytic converter processing, including removing the converter from the vehicle, decanning, crushing, grinding and homogenizing the material for an assay and smelting the product to extract the precious platinum group metals (PGMs).

On the decanning front, Vortex has launched the new dual-station guillotine with separate opener from McIntyre, based in the U.K. The company says it will install the first guillotine and opener system in North America later this month.