How Many Precious Metals are Found in Electronic Devices? - ERI (2024)

FAQs

How much precious metals are in electronics? ›

If you could look closely inside your mobile phone or tablet device, you'd find small amounts of gold, silver, platinum and palladium — the four precious metals that are the “nu*ts and bolts” of modern electronics.

Gold: Gold is used in printed circuit boards, cell phones, computer chips (CPU), connectors and fingers. Silver: SIlver is used in printed circuit boards, cell phones, computer chips, keyboard membranes and some capacitors. Platinum: Platinum is used in hard drives and circuit boards components.

It is estimated that most computers contain one third of a gram of gold. They can be used in different parts, such as on motherboards, PCI boards, internal modems, circuit boards, and old computer processors.

Circuits in modern CPUs and Laptops weigh around 100 gm so you can expect to extract 0.150 grams of Gold. Additionally, the wires and connector pins have gold which will amount to another 0.070 gram and another 0.090 grams for gold plated contacts.

CPUs have a high content of gold – it could be as much as 0.2 g to 0.5 g! Melting and processing of parts from several devices yield up to 1–2 g of gold.

Copper makes up the connective wires. A study out of the Harare Institute of Technology also listed that printed circuit boards contain, “about 20 wt% copper, 0.04 wt% gold, 0.15 wt% silver, and 0.01 wt% palladium,” with wt% representing percentage by weight.

Electronics aren't made entirely of gold. Rather, the precious and expensive metal is used for specific components such as connectors, switch contacts, relay contacts and wires.

According to the International Platinum Group Metals Association, in the electronics sector, most palladium is used for multi-layer ceramic (chip) capacitors (MLCC). MLCCs store energy in electronic devices such as broadcasting equipment, mobile telephones, computers, electronic lighting and high voltage circuits.

Removing Gold Using Fire

Use steel tongs to turn over the burning circuit boards. Get a metal bin or tray, and put the circuit boards into it. Break the boards into smaller pieces so they burn faster. Light the boards on fire.

There is no gold on the disk platters or any of the disk mechanism. Gold is present on most electronic circuit boards.

How much palladium is in a cell phone? ›

Mobile phones contain many valuable metals and uncommon earths. An average iPhone contains around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver and 0.015g of palladium. This is in addition to 1000th of a gram of platinum.

A television contains copper, quartz, iron, gold, platinum, and silver in its parts.

Motherboards and printed circuit boards - The motherboard in particular 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.

Pour nitric acid into the glass container over the circuit boards. Stir the mixture with the glass or metal rod until the contents become a uniform fluid. Once the gold has separated from the plates — it may take some time — strain the nitric acid from the mix using the filter. Take out the pieces that aren't melted.

However, extracting gold from electronics is difficult, and the amount of recovered gold from a single device is very low. Gold is a very non-reactive metal, which forces companies to use chemicals such as sodium cyanide to dissolve and extract gold.

This is a rich form of chemical mixture of chlorine and gold and can have about one ounce of gold if you undertake this procedure carefully.

Catalytic converters contain Platinum, Rhodium and Palladium. However, there is no gold in catalytic converters.

Magann: A PC circuit board, where the gold is, weighs about a pound. If you had a ton of those boards, you should have 5 troy ounces of gold.

Palladium is employed as an electrode material in multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). These components can be easily removed from PCBs by de-soldering. As palladium is alloyed with silver, its dissolution is readily achieved using dilute nitric acid.

Platinum has often been used in cigarette boxes, lighter cases, cigarette and cigar holders, cigar cutters, and other smoking accessories. Now that smoking is becoming less popular, a number of these items are “washing back” onto the marketplace.

How do you extract gold from electronics with nitric acid? ›

Place gold in a beaker or Pyrex container. Mix 3 parts distilled water or spring water to 1 part nitric acid in the beaker or Pyrex container that contains the gold. Add 10 parts tap water. Filter the gold out of the container through a plastic strainer or funnel lined with a filter.

According to recent research, approximately 200 g of gold (Au) per ton of scrap can be extracted from e-waste, whereas Au ores contain 5–30 g of Au per ton; this offers an economic incentive to recycle e-waste rather than mine ores from virgin sources [6], [7], [8], [9].

In nature it is found with other platinum group minerals and metals. These characteristics combined with its low electrical resistance makes rhodium commonly used as an electrical contact material for electrical contacts, semiconductor wafers, printed circuit boards (PCBs), and other mission critical components.

According to Waste Advantage Magazine, the average catalytic converter contains from three to seven grams of platinum, from two to seven grams of palladium, and from one to two grams of rhodium.

Most palladium is used in catalytic converters for cars. It is also used in jewellery and some dental fillings and crowns. White gold is an alloy of gold that has been decolourised by alloying with another metal, sometimes palladium.

Gold is used in the manufacturing of SIM cards due to it being a very excellent conductor of electricity. Other than this, it is also very durable. However, each SIM card contains very little amount of gold, and you need thousands of SIM cards to be able to extract a few grams of gold.

The processors and connectors in computers, tablets, and smartphones use gold. You can also find gold in televisions, gaming consoles, printers, or essentially anything electronic.

Jewelry boxes and dresser drawers, where small, easy-to-overlook small pins, forgotten coins, and bits of jewelry can contain gold, silver and platinum. Kitchen drawers and storage areas, where pieces of silver tableware could be intermixed with other items.

It doesn't dissolve gold. .. unless chlorides are present. Not that chlorides would stand up over time in such a concentrated peroxide solution, either... .

Gold. Gold is also another commonly used metal in wires and cables. It's usually coated around other metal strands because it's an inexpensive metal to use as the sole conductor. Gold is highly conductive and offers a superior level of electrical conductivity compared to copper, silver, and aluminum.

What has the most gold in it? ›

The United States holds the largest stockpile of gold reserves in the world by a considerable margin at over 8,100 tons. The U.S. government has almost as many reserves as the next three largest gold-holding countries combined (Germany, Italy, and France).

If you're wondering whether hard drive platters are worth anything, the answer is yes — they can be quite valuable. Scrap metal dealers will often pay good money for hard drive platters because they contain precious metals like gold and silver.

All hard drives contain precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum and Palladium. While they contain precious metals in very little amount, they still have a value. For most people, hard drives become useless when they cannot store anymore data or contain viruses.

What Affects Catalytic Converter Scrap Value? Catalytic converter worth can range from $800 to $1200. Let's take a look at some factors that drive scrap catalytic converter pricing: The precious metal composition of the car part influences catalytic converter scrap prices.

Copper is a vital element used to produce wiring for all kinds of electronics. It conducts electricity and heat very efficiently, and it is needed in larger amounts than any other metal for mobile phone componentry.

Neodymium, europium, terbium and other rare earth metals that were once barely heard of are now commonplace in phone touchscreens, electric vehicle motors, wind turbines and other modern technologies due to their useful magnetic and electronic properties.

Gold-bearing circuit boards are increasingly used in appliances like microwaves, air conditioners, refrigerators, and kitchen stoves. A good rule of thumb is: The more technological features that an appliance has, the more likely it is to contain small amounts of gold.

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.

Valuable & Precious metals – where they are in Computers:

Platinum – Hard Drives, Circuit board components. Palladium – Hard Drives, Circuit board components (capacitors) Copper – CPU heat sinks, wiring and cables, Printed Circuit Boards, Computer Chips. Nickel – Circuit board components.

How do I extract gold from circuit boards? ›

The Canadian researchers' alternative is a solution of acetic acid and an oxidant — a nontoxic technique to dissolve gold, which is stripped from circuits in about 10 seconds, leaving intact copper, nickel, iron, and other metals in printed circuit boards.

(Fun fact: Real gold is not magnetic.) Fake gold, on the other hand, will stick to the magnet. If that necklace leaps to the magnet, your significant other has some explaining to do. For more tips like this, click here to pre-order Jeff's new book Rossen To The Rescue.

The circuit board usually contains 30% plastic, 30% inert oxide and 40% metal. The main direction of recycling the waste circuit board is metal recovery. The metal contains about 20% copper, 8% iron, 2% nickel, 4% tin, 2% zinc, and precious metals such as about 0.1% gold, 0.2% silver, 0.005% palladium.

Big old desktop computers and peripheral devices like modems and scanners. Old televisions – some old pre-flatscreen large living room models can contain gold that is worth $5.00 or more. Old stereo components including amplifiers and receivers.

Rare-earth elements (REEs) including yttrium, europium, and neodymium are key components of modern electronics, vehicles, and clean-energy technologies. Despite their name, these elements aren't especially uncommon.

A typical iPhone is estimated to house around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium and less than one-thousandth of a gram of platinum.

How Much Silver Does a Home Breaker Have. For an average double-pole circuit breaker, the scrap metal inside may cost $0.20 to $0.40. The silver you get is more or less just around one gram.

Some of the rare-earth metals (and their atomic weights) that are commonly used in electronics include lanthanum (57), cerium (58), neodymium (60), samarium (62), europium (63), terbium (65), and dysprosium (66).

Yttrium, europium, and terbium phosphors are the red-green-blue phosphors used in many light bulbs, panels, and televisions.

What is the most useful rare earth metal? ›

One of them is neodymium, because it's the most important REE used in permanent magnets.