Gold is a much sought after metal with very interesting properties. We often think of gold as being primarily attractive to investors and collectors of gold coins. Gold jewellery is extremely popular across the world, especially in Asia. However, the largest demand for gold comes from the industry.
While a variety of industries use gold for their manufacturing operations, gold has certain properties that make it very attractive to the electronics industry in particular. Gold is one of the most conductive metals on the planet. It is also highly malleable, which means that it can be sheathed onto surfaces. Gold is also very ductile and a small amount of gold can be stretched into wires that run into metres. Therefore the electronics industry has a large appetite for gold.
Why is gold used in the electronics industry?
With a conductivity score of 70%, gold is a popular choice for use in electronics. Most commonly, gold is used as an electroplated coating on contacts and connectors. It shines as the superior choice due to its high conductivity, corrosive resistance, and resilience (especially when mixed with nickel). Copper and silver are both cheaper and more conductive than gold, so tend to be used in a far wider array of electronic applications. Encasing electronics in gold is increasing in popularity to appeal to the luxury market such as the Gold Apple watch.
An electroplating factory in China
A deeper look at the use of gold in the electronics industry tells us that gold is a far superior conductor of electricity when compared to copper, silver and aluminium. This simply means that gold offers minimal resistance to the electricity flowing to and fro. However, its properties like ductility and malleability create a tipping point for its use in the electronics industry. Due to these properties, gold is very user friendly and easy to work with. It is easy and convenient to introduce the yellow metal into miniature electronic circuits, which are often found in mobile phones, gaming devices and other electronic accessories. Gold is also resistant to tarnishing, a property that ensures longer life of the devices and circuit boards in which the metal is used.
Electronics processes, where gold is used
Perhaps one of the largest users of gold in the electronics industry is in plating connectors and contacts. Semiconductor packages also use gold bonding wires, while a wide array of other processes also use gold. These include hybrid circuits, printed circuit boards and their coatings and soldering, contact points for electronic components and metal layers on semiconductors, which can be frequently used as conductor tracks and contacts points.
Gold plated electronic connectors
Due to its corrosion resistance properties and high electrical conductivity, gold has become the metal of choice for use in connectors and contacts. It is most preferred for low voltage, low current and contact force applications. Gold is often electroplated onto nickel and if the device or circuitry needs to function in hostile environments, the thickness of the gold is often increased. This may be true for its use in the electronic car industry, where the e-vehicles need to be driven throughout the year across a range of seasons.
Wire bonding
Wire bonding is another area of use in the electronics industry, where the demand for gold had already doubled in six years from 1994 to 2000. In the last 20 years, the demand for gold for these processes has skyrocketed. Wire bonding is usually found in many electronic devices, for example – computer motherboards and their components.
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FAQs
Gold is used in electronics mainly in the form of electroplating chemicals, gold bonding wire and sputter targets. Smaller quantities are used in hybrid inks and solders. The largest use of gold in electronics is as an electroplated coating on connectors and contacts.
What electronics can I find gold in? ›
How Serious are the Problems of E-waste?
| Gold | Printed circuit boards (PCBs), cell phones, CPUs, connectors and pins |
|---|
| Tantalum | PCBs and some capacitors |
| Neodymium | Hard drives |
| Cobalt | Hard drives |
| Aluminum | PCBs, computer chips, hard drives, heat sinks |
7 more rowsScientists have developed a highly effective method to recover gold from electronic waste, an advance they say could yield $50 worth of gold for every dollar spent.
What is worth scrapping from electronics? ›
Many computers and other electronics contain metals like aluminum, copper, steel, and even gold or silver. Scrap recyclers will pay well for these old electronics, particularly in bulk. Precious metal recovery is a big business that can do a lot to retrieve valuable metals from electronics and recyclables.
What appliance has the most gold in it? ›
In fact, computer parts contain the most gold. It is possible to recover gold from computer boards; it is also possible to extract gold from motherboards, integrated circuits, contacts, pins and printed circuit boards.
Do flat screen TVs have gold in them? ›
In addition to the health risks, when we throw an old TV in the trash, we waste natural resources. Televisions house some valuable materials. It's estimated that one ton of e-waste contains 100 times more gold than one ton of gold ore.
What electronic scrap has the most gold? ›
Smartphones: Smartphones are the electronic devices with the highest gold content, and the amount of gold in a smartphone ranges from 0.03 to 0.05 ounces. Computers: Computers, including desktops, laptops, and servers, contain gold in their circuit boards and connectors.
How many cell phones does it take to get an ounce of gold? ›
We believe in the free flow of information
But few probably realise just how much precious metal they contain. Did you know, for example, that it only takes around 41 mobile phones to recover 1g of gold? The price of gold is currently around US$1,700 (£1,365) per ounce, which is roughly US$60 per gram.
How much gold is in a TV remote? ›
Remotes contain only a few cents' worth of gold that can be found on the edges of the printed circuit boards they contain. But if you do the math, you'll see that a few hundred remotes can be worth more money than you suspect.
What electronic parts are worth money? ›
Valuable & Precious metals – where they are in Computers:
- Gold – Printed Circuit Boards, Computer Chips (CPU), connectors / fingers.
- Silver – Printed Circuit Boards, Computer Chips, keyboard membranes, some capacitors.
- Platinum – Hard Drives, Circuit board components.
5 Most Valuable Items to Scrap For Profit
- Copper.
- Stainless Steel.
- Aluminum.
- Brass.
- Lead.
Because it is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, gold is used extensively in the electronics industries in items such as printed circuits and in transistors. The circuitry of computers, calculators, televisions, telephones, and fire detectors are often plated with gold.
What electrical component has the most gold? ›
Motherboards and printed circuit boards – The motherboard is often the best potential source of gold in computers. The edges of most components on the board will have gold contacts and connectors where the wires slide in. You will often find thin layers of gold on the motherboard's surface.
How much gold is in a cell phone? ›
There is actual gold in your phone, used because of its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. However, the amount of gold contained in a phone is smaller than one might expect. On average, a smartphone might have around 0.034 grams of gold.
What role does gold play in electronics? ›
Gold is expensive, which begs the question: why is it used in computers? This metal has several properties that make it desirable: Conductivity – Electricity moves easily through gold, which is important for ensuring the conductivity that makes a semiconductor function.
