While watching a segment about rhodium on QI (BBC), Alan Davies told a story relating to ‘catalytic converters’ being stolen from cars for the urban mining of rhodium. “A what?” I heard myself asking out loud; TIL a catalytic converter is part of a car’s exhaust system and utilises precious metals, such as platinum, palladium and rhodium, to convert engine pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, etc.) into less harmful substances. From what I understand the exhaust fumes are forced through a honeycomb structure composed of these precious metals which break down harmful molecules into safer compounds.
