How precious metals are recovered from electronics
Gold, silver, palladium and a little platinum sit mostly on circuit boards, in platings and components too small to pick out by hand. They are recovered together, commonly by sending boards to a copper smelter and refining what the copper collects.
This page describes industry and research processes in general. It does not describe ERI’s operations.
Silver, palladium and platinum in electronics
Silver in electrical and electronic products
Silver is valued in electronics for its physical properties, which the US Geological Survey lists as high electrical conductivity, ductility, malleability and reflectivity. Electrical and electronic products were the largest domestic use of silver in the United States in 2025, at an estimated 25 percent, with a further 3 percent used in brazing and solder. In the same year about 1,000 metric tons of silver was recovered from new and old scrap in the United States, equal to about 11 percent of apparent consumption.1
Palladium and platinum in electronics
Palladium and platinum belong to the platinum-group metals. Their leading use in the United States is in automotive catalytic converters, but the US Geological Survey also lists electronic applications, naming computer hard disks, hybridized integrated circuits and multilayer ceramic capacitors. The USGS reports that about 140,000 kilograms of palladium and platinum were recovered worldwide from new and old scrap in 2025. That total includes about 50,000 kilograms of palladium and 8,600 kilograms of platinum from automotive catalytic converters in the United States.2
How much there is
Precious metals in a metric ton of cell phones
A single phone holds very little precious metal. A 2006 US Geological Survey fact sheet estimated about 0.034 gram of gold, 0.35 gram of silver, 0.015 gram of palladium and 0.00034 gram of platinum in a typical cell phone of the time. The amounts add up only at scale: using a 2005 industry estimate, the fact sheet put the content of one metric ton of obsolete phones, without batteries, at 140 kilograms of copper, 3.14 kilograms of silver, 300 grams of gold, 130 grams of palladium and 3 grams of platinum. These figures describe phones of that era, and newer devices differ.3
How they are recovered
Why circuit boards are sorted by grade
Recycling is driven by the value of the metal that can be recovered, and that value is not spread evenly through a device. A cost breakdown for a desktop computer published by the UN Environment Programme lists high-grade boards, low-grade boards, and chips and processors as separate fractions, each with its own revenue. How boards are prepared also matters: the same report notes that purely mechanical pre-processing leads to major losses of precious metals into dust and ferrous fractions, and that recovery improves with better manual dismantling.4
Smelting boards with copper (the collector route)
Circuit boards are commonly recycled through copper metallurgy. According to the UN Environment Programme, an integrated copper smelter can accept electronic scrap and lower-grade copper scrap in dedicated furnaces alongside its other feeds. The precious metals follow the copper. After the copper is electro-refined, gold, silver and the platinum-group metals are extracted from what remains, shown in the report's flowsheet as anode slime, typically by hydrometallurgical steps. The report describes this pairing of smelting and wet chemistry as extending what can be recovered.4
Dissolving the metals out (hydrometallurgy)
Hydrometallurgy recovers metals by dissolving them in a liquid and then separating each metal from the solution. A 2020 peer-reviewed review describes it as lower in capital cost than smelting and more selective, but challenged by the complexity of circuit boards and the need for strong acids. Cyanide, the reagent used for most gold produced from ore, is highly toxic, and one reported test recovered only 60 percent of the gold from pulverized boards. Less toxic alternatives such as thiosulfate are typically less efficient. Because cyanide can harm workers and nearby communities, gold miners have adopted a voluntary cyanide management code.5
How much is recovered today
How much of the precious metal in e-waste is recovered
Most precious metal in discarded electronics is not recovered. The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 estimates that e-waste generated worldwide in 2022 contained about 1.6 million kilograms of precious metals such as gold, silver and palladium, and that about 300 thousand kilograms was viably recovered. The report says these metals can be recycled at very high rates in smelters, with palladium reaching 95 percent or more, but that this requires separate pre-treatment that minimizes metal losses, which is not current practice globally. Informal recycling by burning and acid leaching loses metal and releases harmful emissions.6
Where each material sits
Gold
Gold in electronics: what it does and where it sits has its own page, with every device here that holds it.
Silver
The 14 devices here that hold silver
| Device | Where the silver sits | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Cordless drill | Solder and trigger-switch contacts | A trace |
| E-bike | Solder on the controller board | A trace |
| Game console | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Robot vacuum | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Flat-screen TV | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Hard disk drive | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Smartwatch | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Wireless earbuds | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Solar panels | Fine contact lines printed on cells | A trace |
| Circuit boards | Lead-free solder and switch contacts | A trace |
| Headphones | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Laptop | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Smartphone | Solder and board finishes | A trace |
| Enterprise server | Solders and contacts on the boards | A trace |
Palladium
The 13 devices here that hold palladium
| Device | Where the palladium sits | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Cordless drill | Ceramic capacitors on the boards | A trace |
| E-bike | Capacitors on the controller board | A trace |
| Game console | Ceramic capacitors on the main board | A trace |
| Robot vacuum | Capacitors on the main board | A trace |
| Flat-screen TV | Ceramic capacitors on its boards | A trace |
| Hard disk drive | Ceramic capacitors on each board | A trace |
| Smartwatch | Ceramic capacitors on the main board | A trace |
| Wireless earbuds | Ceramic capacitors on the boards | A trace |
| Circuit boards | Multilayer ceramic capacitors | A trace |
| Headphones | Ceramic capacitors on the boards | A trace |
| Laptop | Ceramic capacitors on the logic board | A trace |
| Smartphone | Ceramic capacitors on the logic board | A trace |
| Enterprise server | Ceramic capacitors on the boards | A trace |
Platinum
The one device here that holds platinum
| Device | Where the platinum sits | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Hard disk drive | Magnetic coating on the platters | A trace |
Which devices feed this stream
These are sorted for precious metals when they are recycled. Each page says what the device holds and where.
Sources
- Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: SilverUS Geological Survey (February 2026), Page 1, 'Domestic Production and Use' and 'Recycling' paragraphs
- Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Platinum-Group MetalsUS Geological Survey (February 2026), Page 1, 'Domestic Production and Use' and 'Recycling' paragraphs
- Recycled Cell Phones - A Treasure Trove of Valuable Metals (Fact Sheet 2006-3097)US Geological Survey (July 2006), Page 2, section 'Metal Contents in Cell Phones' and Table 1
- Metal Recycling: Opportunities, Limits, InfrastructureUnited Nations Environment Programme, International Resource Panel (2013)
- 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, Sections 'Hydrometallurgy' and 'Leaching'
- The Global E-waste Monitor 2024International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), 2024, Chapter 6 'Recovery of Valuable and Critical Metals', pages 44 to 45 and Figure 18; Chapter 3, Figure 13 text, page 35
Reviewed