An integrated soda roasting–alkaline leaching–carbonization process was developed to recover platinum (Pt) and aluminum (Al) from a spent Pt/Al₂O₃ catalyst. A product with the main component of NaAlO₂ was obtained under the optimal roasting conditions of the mass ratio of Na₂CO₃ to spent catalyst 1, roasting time 2 h and roasting temperature 900 °C. The Al in the roasted residue was effectively leached in a dilute NaOH solution, while Pt was enriched in the leached residue with a Pt content that reached 29.4%, and the calculated concentration factor of Pt yielded 79.4. After carbonization was performed for the leached solution, 99.0% of the Al was recovered as the pseudo-boehmite product, which could be used as the feed for preparing the Al₂O₃ carrier. Pt and Al₂O₃ in the spent catalyst were selectively separated and enriched using the above process, which thus has good application prospects.

The Jinbaoshan Pt-Pd deposit is China’s largest independent PGM deposit. However, the deposit has not been utilized until now because of the low grade of precious metals, the complex mineral composition, and, notably, the presence of precious metals in the microgranular material disseminated to other minerals. Its high MgO content, in particular, is regarded as a challenge for efficiently recovering precious metals via mature pyrometallurgical methods. In this research, the feasibility of a smelting process to recover precious metals from Jinbaoshan Pt-Pd concentrates at a conventional smelting temperature (1350 °C) with the addition of iron ore as a metal collector and SiO₂ and CaO as fluxes was verified on the basis of thermodynamic slag design and experimental analyses. Under the optimal conditions of 100 g of the Pt-Pd concentrates, 32.5 g of SiO₂, 7.5 g of CaO, and 30 g of iron ore at 1350 °C for 1 h, the extraction efficiencies of Au, Pt, and Pd were 94.66%, 96.75%, and 97.28%, respectively. This strategy enables the rapid collection of PGMs from Jinbaoshan Pt-Pd concentrates at the conventional temperature within a short time and minimizes the use of fluxes and collectors, contributing to energy and cost conservation.