PGMs are used in important technologies that bring about reductions in environmental gases, while also increasing efficiency in the way we move and live.

Catalytic converters are an existing technology that can reduce exhaust emissions from cars and trucks. The average family car would emit 15 tons of the toxic and harmful polluting gases (carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides) over a 10 year life if catalytic converters were not fitted to all new cars to remove 98% of pollution as required by current legislation.

Platinum, palladium and rhodium are all used in catalytic converters for cars. To understand how they work click here.

Benefits of catalytic converters

The ability of catalytic converters to reduce emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides, and particulates with diesel engines, is widely known. One manufacturer of catalytic converters estimated that during the last 11 years the company's 130 million catalytic converters used in the U.S. have eliminated automotive pollutants that -- if unchecked and unabated -- could have covered the country with a toxic blanket of carbon monoxide more than 500 feet deep. The USA and Japan were the first countries to enact standards that required the fitting of catalysts to passenger cars. Europe, Australia and parts of Asia followed in the 1980s, and then developing economies such as Brazil, Mexico and India in the 1990s. more >>