Laboratory Platinum Ware
Grip it and hit it with a propane torch — real platinum is shockingly dense, utterly non-magnetic, and comes out of the flame still mirror-white; a nickel or platinised crucible is light, may stick to a magnet, discolours grey-black in seconds and is worth two dollars.
How to spot it
Silvery-white mirror-bright or satin thin-walled (0.2–0.5 mm) seamless vessels: high- or low-form crucibles with lids, evaporating dishes, Gooch filtering crucibles, boats, cones and woven gauze squares. Hallmarks sit on the underside or rim — Pt, Pt 5% Au, Pt/Rh, ZGS, PtAu5, the Johnson Matthey mark, Heraeus, Engelhard, Chemplex, XRF Scientific. Sizes 5–250 ml; found in XRF fusion labs, geochem and assay labs, cement and mining labs, ceramics R&D and electrochemistry benches.
Metal content
| Metal | Quantity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | ~454 g/lb — it is solid metal | A Heraeus 25 ml high-form crucible is 21.0 g of pure Pt (vendor spec). 50 ml is 35–45 g, 100 ml 60–85 g |
| Gold | 5% in Pt-5%Au XRF fusion crucibles | 25–40 g pieces worth $1,470–2,360 |
| Base metal | Rh 5–10% in Pt-Rh crucibles | Rh lifts a 25–50 g crucible to $1,650–3,700 |
At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $25,062 per pound of contained metal — Platinum 454 g = $25,062. A refiner paying $22400 returns about 89% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.
Safe removal
Working temperature: Warm dilute acid soak only; never melt or reshape
Nothing to remove — it is the metal. Soak in hot dilute HCl or HNO3 to strip flux and sample residue (never aqua regia), scrub with a Pt-safe brush, dry, weigh, photograph and ship insured. Do not polish with abrasives — you are literally sanding money off — and keep Pt, Pt-Au, Pt-Rh and Pt-Ir in separate labelled bags, because a mixed bag is assayed at the worst constituent.
Hazards
NEVER grind, sand, saw or incinerate anything that might contain thorium or radium. Sealed sources stay sealed.
NEVER torch, incinerate or overheat PTFE insulation, and never smoke around PTFE dust — it converts on the cigarette.
The practical answer for nearly everyone: sort, concentrate, and sell to a licensed refiner. A good refiner recovers 85–98%, assays rather than guesses, pays on the assay, and takes the waste liability. Your edge as a scrapper is identification and sorting — not chemistry.
NEVER open, cut, heat, drill, drop, shred or sell an inflator. There is no recoverable metal in one — the initiator's gold is measured in micrograms. Deploy-in-place by a trained handler, or hand it to the OEM collection stream.
NEVER vacuum a mercury spill — it aerosolises it. Use a mercury spill kit or sulphur powder, or call your local hazmat line.
Don't rush a hot engine. Nothing here is worth a hand.
Before you scrap it
The common trap
Questions
How much gold is in laboratory platinum ware?
Platinum: ~454 g/lb — it is solid metal. Gold: 5% in Pt-5%Au XRF fusion crucibles. At current spot that is about $25,062 of contained metal per pound.
How do you identify laboratory platinum ware?
Grip it and hit it with a propane torch — real platinum is shockingly dense, utterly non-magnetic, and comes out of the flame still mirror-white ; a nickel or platinised crucible is light, may stick to a magnet, discolours grey-black in seconds and is worth two dollars.
How do you remove laboratory platinum ware safely?
Nothing to remove — it is the metal. Soak in hot dilute HCl or HNO3 to strip flux and sample residue (never aqua regia), scrub with a Pt-safe brush, dry, weigh, photograph and ship insured. Do not polish with abrasives — you are literally sanding money off — and keep Pt, Pt-Au, Pt-Rh and Pt-Ir in separate labelled bags, because a mixed bag is assayed at the worst constituent.
Is laboratory platinum ware worth more working than as scrap?
The one item where scrapping and selling are roughly equal — intact ware resells at 100–130% of melt versus 89–95% net from a refiner, so selling is worth 10–35% more and is faster with no fees. Sell intact if undamaged, hallmarked and a common size; refine if cracked, embrittled, holed or unmarked, or if you have over 150 g of odds and ends.
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