We haven’t written about sputtering targets in some time. But it’s worth revisiting the topic because money can be made recycling them. Sputtering targets are a very specialized kind of platinum scrap – and in some cases, of gold and silver as well. 

We have written about sputtering targets before on the Specialty Metals Blog. To review, they are multilayered disks that contain several different metals. When they are secured  inside a plasma plating tank and electrical current flows through them, their uppermost layer of metal (be it gold, platinum, or another metal) is dispersed into the plasma inside the tank.  Due to the flow of electrons, it adheres to the surface of whatever metal object is being plated.

Sometimes a customer will call us up and ask how we can recycle items that are relatively simple and straightforward to process. If you have a platinum engagement or wedding ring, for example, you can send it to us so we can test it and retrieve the precious metal it contains.

Many precious metal investors believe that they will make a lot of money if they look for “one big win” in their investing. They will find one batch of gold scrap, platinum scrap or even silver scrap, make a lot of money from it, and then they will be set for life.

Of course, that does happen. (We could tell you stories about times when it has.) But looking for one big high-paying batch of metal is not the most effective way to spend years investing and ending up with a large sum of money from investments.

In most parts of the country today, “We Buy Gold” stores have become common sights. But chances are you haven’t seen any stores that post prominent offers to buy platinum, rhodium, or even silver.

So what are you supposed to do if you have platinum scrap that you would like to sell or recycle?

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Are you interested in making money in platinum scrap? There are plenty of reasons you should be. The biggest could be that the new tariffs on items imported from China seem poised to raise the cost of platinum-containing items.

We’ve written about sputtering targets in the past, but a few recent calls made us think that this would be a good time to remind our readers that most used sputtering targets still contain precious metals that are worth extracting.

If you called a precious metals refinery for an over-the-phone appraisal, you would be pretty excited to hear the words, “Your scrap could be worth an awful lot of money.” And you should be happy. The problem is, those words could lure you into one of the precious metal scams that are happening today.

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