Gold is an essential material in electronics and plays a vital role in smartphone manufacturing, though less than 0.007 to 0.034 grams of gold is in a cell phone. Despite the small content, gold’s exceptional properties make it an irreplaceable component in modern mobile phones.
Gold in a Cell Phone
A typical smartphone contains between 7 and 34 milligrams of gold, which is worth between $0.60 and $2.50 at the current spot price of gold per gram. While this might seem insignificant, the sheer number of smartphones produced each year makes the use of gold an essential part of the electronics industry. Globally, about seven metric tons of gold are used annually to manufacture smartphones, making it a crucial resource in this sector.
Gold is mostly found within a smartphone’s circuit board, also known as the motherboard, which acts as the brain of the device. It facilitates communication between various components like the microprocessor, memory, and display. Gold is also used in connectors, contacts, and bonding wires within the circuit board because of its excellent conductivity, resistance to corrosion, and durability.
Reasons Gold is Used in Cell Phones
- Electrical Conductivity: Gold is a powerful conductor of electricity, critical for the fast and accurate transmission of signals within a smartphone. The metal helps to minimize signal loss and ensures efficient processing.
- Corrosion Resistance: The high resistance to tarnishing and corrosion makes gold perfect for use in components that need to perform with long-term reliability. This is especially important for contacts that connect parts of the phone to each other.
- Bonding Wires: Gold is also used in the bonding wires that link semiconductor chips to the phone’s inner circuitry. These wires must be strong and conductive, and gold perfectly meets the criteria.
Gold is typically plated onto other metals in phones to reduce costs. The thin layer of gold in connectors is just a few microns thick, which is enough to ensure the device functions properly without adding excessive manufacturing costs.
Other Metals Used in Cell Phones
In addition to gold, smartphones rely on several other metals and minerals that contribute to their functionality. Some of these include:
- Silver: Like gold, silver is a highly conductive metal used in the circuit boards of mobile phones. While smartphones vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, most smartphones have about 90 milligrams of silver.
- Copper: Copper is used as an electrical conductor, especially in the phone’s wiring and circuit boards. This includes gold-plated wiring, and your smartphone may contain as much as half an ounce of copper.
- Aluminum: This lightweight metal is used in mobile phone casings and components.
- Cobalt: Cobalt is essential for making the rechargeable batteries used in smartphones. It helps ensure the batteries are powerful and reliable.
- Lithium: Lithium is another key component in the phone’s battery, providing the chemical foundation for lithium-ion cells.
These elements use the scientific properties of precious metals to contribute to smartphones’ functionality, durability, and performance.
Parts of a Phone that Contain Gold
Gold is often found in the following areas of a smartphone:
- Circuit Board: The circuit board, or motherboard, houses various components and is coated with a thin layer of gold to ensure efficient communication between them. While silver and copper are also strong conductors, their propensity to corrode makes gold a better choice.
- SIM Card: The SIM card, which connects a phone to its network, contains a small amount of gold, approximately 8 milligrams.
- Connectors and Contacts: Many of the phone’s internal connectors are gold-plated to ensure reliable connections between components like the battery, speakers, cameras, and processors.
Using gold in these areas ensures that smartphones function effectively for extended periods without performance degradation due to corrosion or wear.
Devices with More Gold than Smartphones
While smartphones contain gold, other electronic devices typically have a higher gold content. For example, high-end desktop computers and server-grade motherboards may contain up to 1 gram of gold, compared to the 0.034 grams in a smartphone. This is because these larger devices require more powerful and reliable components. Server motherboards, in particular, have the highest gold content due to their larger circuit boards and the need for more robust connections.
Recycling and Gold Recovery
Amid growing concern about the environmental impact of gold mining, recycling has become an important part of mitigating waste. Apple, for instance, runs a recycling program where customers can turn in their old devices for credit. The program recovers valuable materials like gold, which can be reused in new devices. On average, it takes 41 smartphones to recover just one gram of gold.
While the amount of gold in a smartphone is small, the collective value of gold in the millions of phones produced annually makes it a significant factor in the electronics supply chain.
