Nowadays, platinum is processed along a linear pathway. Platinum is acquired from mining, mostly in South Africa (Pretoria) Russia and Zimbabwe where it is found in relatively high concentrations: around 5ppm[1]. These absolute concentrations are rather lower than most metals, so platinum in often a by-product of another mined resource such as nickel or coal.
There is an urgency to find a way to produce it sustainably before 2064, its exhaustion date. It's probably better to think about how to change the economic pathway of platinum than to try to find an alternative metal to platinum since the only substiture to platinum, palladium has its reserves more depleted than the paltinum ones and should be exhausted in 2024.
The process we’ve designed allows the shaping of a circularized economy. Instead of being wasted in the environment, platinum can re-enter the economy thus making platinum production sustainable!