There is only about 1/35th of a gram of gold in an average cell phone's interior. Not much, because gold is super malleable and gold is so soft and nontoxic, we can eat gold sheets and shavings.
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.
The most valuable materials in old cell phones include: Precious metals: Old cell phones contain small amounts of precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. These metals are used in various electronic components such as circuit boards, connectors, and switches.
One of the most expensive minerals used to create your smartphone is gold. Because of its excellent conductivity, gold is commonly used in printed circuit boards as well as other wiring and components. And of course, it's not only found in phones. It's an essential material in many of today's consumer electronics.
Among all home devices, computers and televisions typically contain the most gold. Gold is also found in the circuit boards of earlier generations of cameras, radios, and media players. Traces of gold can be found in other electronics like game consoles, tablets, and phones.
Quick answer: Yes, it can be if you know what you're doing! Recovering gold from electronics is not easy. You could end up wasting time and effort if you don't take the time to understand everything about extracting 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.
A modern smartphone consists of more than 25 components, coming from different manufacturers, at different prices, and all of this takes some high precision technology and a human hand to get crafted into a whole package. And the most expensive part of that package is the... internal NAND flash memory.
The main component of a SIM card is the electronic chip made from Silicon with some added impurities such as phosphorous . It is plated with metals such as Gold to form outer layer which makes contact with your mobile phone. This chip is housed inside a shell made from plastic. 1,000 SIM Card Approx Contains 1 gm Gold.
Magann: In very rough numbers, there are 10 troy ounces of gold (or about three-fifths of a pound) per ton of smartphones. Ten thousand phones weigh one ton.
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.
The circuit boards used for microwave component assembly also exploit gold for similar reasons. The substrate material in this case is a highly polished alumina tile.
Remotes of All Kinds
Just about every household has a batch of old remote control devices for old TVs, VCRs, and more lying around, sometimes quite a few. And each of them contains a small printed circuit board that contains a small quantity of gold.
TVs usually contain a very small amount of gold that might amount to about $1.00 or less in value. It can be quite a lot of work to get to the gold inside your TV as well.
Strip out the boards
In another container, mix two parts hydrochloric acid and one part weak hydrogen peroxide (a concentration of three per cent). Pour this mixture over the circuit boards so they are completely submerged. Wait for a week, giving the vessel a stir every day with a glass or plastic rod.
Use Nitric Acid
If you have a circuit board with gold plating, you can remove the gold using nitric acid. The acid will dissolve the metal and leave the non-metallic components of the circuit board intact.
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.
Australia is estimated to have the world's largest gold reserves, with 9,500 tonnes or 17 per cent of the total world estimated gold reserves of 57,000 tonnes.
Australia and Russia hold the largest reserves of gold
Australia and Russia hold a large share of the world's gold mine reserves, accounting for 8,400 metric tons and 6,800 metric tons, respectively. Worldwide, the production of gold reached an estimated 3,100 metric tons in 2022.