Platinum from car exhaust damaging DNA, is this the cause of cancer?

As most of you know the inside of a catalytic converter contains a very thin plating of platinum. Once the converter gets old it slowly beaks down and spews microscopic platinum dust. Millions of cars spray platinum dust everyday. Platinum can be used to damage a young snail's DNA enough to turn it to a slug. wired.com This is confirmed through scientific study. Government study

So being related to a snail may make you worry about your snail DNA? We are related to the snail. Guardian
And if you think about it, before the platinum poisoning it was lead in the fuel. I can't find the article i read that linked lead fuel to a large percentage of baby boomer health problems.

I can't believe a catalytic converter would help exhaust emissions when compared to a finely tuned engine. Catalytic converter cars are ran rich to fuel the catalyst process. They also seem to be very restrictive/de-tuned/less efficient engines.

Shhh.... Don't tell anyone because I think it was a federal offense or something (like ..worse than mattress tags!) but I knew a couple guys growing up that bought more than their weekend beer budget by removing those catalytic converters from people's cars for them. This was before California fixed everyone's wagon on that by required inspections by crooked stations everyone then had to bribe with more than the backyard surgery cost for increased fuel mileage.

I did see a couple small grass fires start from the infernal things....but GOOD reasons to have them? I was kinda lost on that too...aside from their removal being the path to party budgets, of course.

i looked into this a while ago, it was after i had replaced my exhaust on my truck [by myself], and noticed that the internals of the converter had basically disapeared from years of use. there were still a few loose chunks of it in there, but most of it was gone.
there are diferent types of catalysts but most of them are the 3 way type these days, i believe they actually use 'paladium', which i heard is safe for humans, they use it on some jewlery.

feel free to check out what i've said here, as it was some time ago i checked this.

cars also put out alot of airborn powders from brake shoes and the tires wearing down, so overall, yah, they probably lead to cancer and other diseases.

Platinum is used because it has a very high melting point. There are no moving parts in a converter. If your car is kept in good tune it will last literally a million miles. They only break down if overloaded with unburned fuel. So keep your car tuned up and run a bottle of Techron once a month to keep the carbon out of the engine and converter. The alternative is very very expensive in the long run. Converters without platinum coatings normally last only 1 year. Converter get extremely hot, upwards of 900 degree's. Oxygen sensors in the exhaust do not work until they reach 700 degrees which is why they have pre-heaters in them. Until they find an alternative that can take the heat i doubt there will be a change.

My old car, build in '92, ran its whole lifetime (about 20 years) with the orignal converter, was checked routinely every 2 years with no problems ever in its converter or the exhaust-values, therefore it is possible that a converter may run for this long without losing ist platinum.

The catalyst itself is most often a precious metal. Platinum is the most active catalyst and is widely used, but is not suitable for all applications because of unwanted additional reactions (see below) and high cost.
Palladium and rhodium are two other precious metals used. Rhodium is used as a reduction catalyst, palladium is used as an oxidation catalyst, and platinum is used both for reduction and oxidation. Cerium, iron, manganese and nickel are also used, although each has its own limitations. Nickel is not legal for use in the European Union (because of its reaction with carbon monoxide into nickel tetracarbonyl). Copper can be used everywhere except North America,[clarification needed] where its use is illegal because of the formation of dioxin.

en.wikipedia.org...

Palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs).
These have similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of them.
Over half of the supply of palladium and its congener platinum goes into catalytic converters, which convert up to 90% of harmful gases from auto exhaust (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide) into less-harmful substances (nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor).

i think they will alternate between paladium/plattinum due to the change in price of the materials as the ford moco found out the hard way ...

In the run up to 2000, the Russian supply of palladium to the global market was repeatedly delayed and disrupted[23] because the export quota was not granted on time, for political reasons. The ensuing market panic drove the price to an all-time high of $1100 per troy ounce in January 2001.[24] Around this time, the Ford Motor Company, fearing auto vehicle production disruption due to a possible palladium shortage, stockpiled large amounts of the metal purchased near the price high. When prices fell in early 2001, Ford lost nearly US$1 billion.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by ManFromEurope


I think in 1992 most cars used a wave converter. A wave converter uses pellets to absorb and transfer heat. They contain no platinum. Regardless, a properly tuned engine will keep that converter in good health forever, or until somebody steals it for the platinum.

reply to post by yellowsnow


Wired page does not provide methodology.

Full study from your pubmed.gov abstract: www.sciencedirect.com...

Eggs of fish or snails were transferred to 50 ml plastic Petri dishes containing different solutions of PtCl2 (platinum standard solution of 1000 μg/ml in 2% HCl, Ultra Scientific, Wesel, Germany) with the following nominal concentrations: 0.1, 1, 10, 50, 100 and 200 μg/l PtCl2 and the control medium, respectively.

First, PtCl2 != Pt particulates from catalytic converter.

Second, 1000 ug = 1e-3 g
Moles PtCl2 = 195 + 71 = 1e-3 / 266 = 0.00000376 per ml
1 ml = 0.001 dm^-3
:. [PtCl2] = 0.00000376 / 0.001 = 3.76e-3 M (mol dm^-3)

That's the standard level of PtCl2 (not related to car exhaust) which embryonic organisms were exposed to, they used several multiples of this including a 1/10 conc. solution and a 10x conc. solution (for comparison, see smoking while pregnant vs smoking in adulthood) while atmospheric levels of Pt from car exhaust are [not found, trace, evidently orders of magnitude less than those used in this study].

The above calculations are only relevant if we assume Pt particulates in the air from car exhaust are at least partially PtCl2, which you're assuming in your OP. (They're not.)

Guardian article is misleading - see convergent evolution. Examples of convergent evolution of interest: Cactaceae and Euphorbiaceae families.

On that note, study indicates hypersensitivity of M. cornuarietis while showing no effect on D. rerio.

3.2. Genotoxicity of PtCl2 in D. rerio

Comet assay data revealed no genotoxic hazard of the tested PtCl2 concentrations in cells derived from D. rerio (Fig. 2).
3.3. Genotoxicity of PtCl2 in M. cornuarietis

In contrast to the results obtained for D. rerio, PtCl2 revealed a considerable genotoxic hazard potential for M. cornuarietis. Except for the lowest tested concentration of 0.1 μg/l PtCl2, tail moments of Pt-exposed snail cells were significantly higher than controls (Fig. 3). With rising concentration of PtCl2 up to 100 μg/l, an increasing tail moment was observed in cells of M. cornuarietis. Medians of the tail moments of cells of M. cornuarietis exposed to 50 and 100 μg/l PtCl2 were in the same order of magnitude or even slightly higher than the tail moments of the positive controls. Only the tail moments recorded for snails exposed to the highest tested concentration of 200 μg/l PtCl2 were, though elevated above negative control levels, significantly lower than after exposure to 100 μg/l PtCl2 (Fig. 3).

Conclusion:
Your sources are unrelated to your claims.
Even if your sources were related to your claims, methodology is not comparable with reality.
Reasons for (not necessity of) use of catalytic converters is well documented, environmental implications mainly, environmental implications may be suspect but that is not the point of this thread.

reply to post by yellowsnow


Thanks Yellowsnow, I think it is dangerous
The metal catalysts are bonded with a very finy ceramic "sponge ".
The car vibrates, the exhaust vibrates.
After several years on the road, a small part of the ceramic "sponge " is gone, lost with the passing exhaust gasses.
The broken off micro/nano particles are free in the environment.
Not a good plan to have such active particles in your lungs.

This was known 20 or 30 years ago, there was one German professor trying to get the truth out.
Did not make him popular.

Sorry that i can not recall the name of the scientist.

Platinum-based antineoplastic drugs, were among chemotherapy-agents used to treat the cancer that I had. I've enjoyed nearly 15 years post remission.

On the other hand, wearing my platinum wedding ring caused some type of irritation. I assume that is linked to chemotherapy.

And a question. I replaced the cats on one of my vehicles, and have them collecting dust in my garage. I had the intention of getting the platinum rhodium and palladium out. Anyone know the way to do it? If not, I'll eventually take them to a recycler.

reply to post by tinhattribunal

and noticed that the internals of the converter had basically disapeared from years of use. there were still a few loose chunks of it in there, but most of it was gone.

I've seen people intentionally hammer a clogged up catalytic converter, and let the insides get pushed out the exhaust.

reply to post by jimmiec

Regardless, a properly tuned engine will keep that converter in good health forever, or until somebody steals it for the platinum.

Using bad gas, or lower than recommended octane, can also screw up a cars cats. I have 4 vehicles, each with the same octane requirements, the same year built, and similar mileage. 3 of the vehicles have always been given proper octane. One vehicle was continually driven to an area where the only available gas was low octane. Six months of occasional low octane gas, and the car became increasingly sluggish, until I repaired the exhaust.

reply to post by tamusan


Yes, High compression engines require high octane fuel. Add to that the new fuel blends that run higher cylinder head temps and it can overload the converter.

reply to post by Dispo


Better source to show Platinum does have the ability to affect cell division and damage DNA. It is injected intravenously, in some forms, to treat some kinds of cancer.
wiki

reply to post by yellowsnow


Again, concentration orders of magnitude different, and I really really need to convey this point to everyone reading.

JUST BECAUSE A COMPOUND


HAS AN ELEMENT (e.g. PLATINUM)


DOES NOT MEAN THAT SAID


ELEMENT IS DANGEROUS.


IN THIS CASE, THE COMPOUND ALSO


CONTAINS NITROGEN, WHICH MAKES


UP 79% OF THE AIR YOU BREATHE.

reply to post by jimmiec


Cool, thank you for the technical information. I just started to repair my own vehicles 2 years ago, but lack a lot of knowledge. I know a little more about Electronics or Biology, than I do about engine mechanics.

reply to post by yellowsnow


Yes, as I said above, I had the platinum based chemotherapy. The platimum does not enter the cell on it's own, and is delivered with a transporting agent.

reply to post by Dispo


Thank you. Your post cleared most everything up for me.

Anyone know how to get the precious metals out of the converters?

they are bonded [chemical?] to the substrate
the wiki link i posted above will give you more info on that process

the inside of a new converter is white, like it's an oxide of, not pure, platinum.
and there is probably not much material you would recover, unless you had a supply of conveters , like the recycle yards do.

they collect them and likley ship them to another company that recovers the platinum there, it's probably a chemical process.

thinking of making a trillion dollar coin ?

reply to post by yellowsnow

Anything that can damage tissue can make it more easy for opportunistic fungi to trigger the circumstances for the development of cancer.