Gold in electronics: what it does and where it sits
Gold is in electronics for what it does, not for how it looks. It conducts electricity well and resists corrosion, so it is plated in very thin layers onto contacts that have to keep working for years. There is very little in any one device, and it is spread across many small parts.
79AuGoldWhy gold is used in electronics
Most fabricated gold goes into jewelry, but gold is also an industrial metal. The US Geological Survey attributes this to its superior electrical conductivity and its resistance to corrosion, together with other physical and chemical properties. The USGS notes that gold emerged as an essential industrial metal in the late twentieth century and that it performs critical functions in computers and communications equipment, among other products. Alongside these industrial uses, gold keeps its long-standing role as a store of value.1
Gold in circuit boards compared with gold in ore
Circuit boards can hold more gold per metric ton than the rock that gold mines process. A 2020 peer-reviewed review reports that precious metal levels in electronic waste vary widely, from 10 to 1,600 parts per million of gold, and that in most cases they exceed the levels expected in conventionally mined ore. For comparison, it gives 18 parts per million as typical of a rich gold ore. The same review notes that the concentration depends on the age of the device: gold contacts thinned from about 1.0 micrometer in devices made in the 1980s to between 0.6 and 0.3 micrometer in those made in the 2000s.2
Where it sits
| Device | Where the gold sits | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Cordless drill | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| E-bike | Controller chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Game console | Processor and connector contacts | A trace |
| Robot vacuum | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Flat-screen TV | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Hard disk drive | Connector and chip contacts | A trace |
| Smartwatch | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Wireless earbuds | Plating on the charging pins | A trace |
| Circuit boards | Edge fingers, connector pins and chip contacts | A trace |
| Headphones | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Laptop | Processor, memory and connector contacts | A trace |
| Smartphone | Chip and connector contacts | A trace |
| Enterprise server | Processor, memory and connector contacts | A trace |
How it is recovered
Gold is recovered with the other precious metals: circuit boards typically go to a smelter, and refining then separates the gold from the copper that collected it. How precious metals are recovered from electronics.
Sources
- Gold Statistics and InformationUS Geological Survey, National Minerals Information Center, Overview paragraph at the top of the page
- Challenges and opportunities in the recovery of gold from electronic wasteRSC Advances, Royal Society of Chemistry (2020), peer-reviewed open-access review, full text in PubMed Central, Section 'Gold recovery from printed circuit boards', first paragraph
Reviewed