What home appliances use gold?

The precious metal has been known since ancient times, but with the advent of electronics, the scope of its application has expanded enormously. This happened due to several of its advantages:

• malleability, which makes it possible to obtain sheets of minimal thickness without heating;
• ductility, ensuring the production of thin wire (used in microcircuits);
• preservation of properties in aggressive environments (with the exception of a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids);
• the ability not to oxidize, this gives the contacts strong protection from external influences;
• excellent electrical conductivity (after silver and copper).

Reference! The listed properties make it possible to use the metal in such areas as astronautics, medicine, chemistry, energy, nanotechnology, and the automotive industry.

Directions for use:

• gold leaf;
• thin coating;
• small parts made of alloy with other metals.

Industrial use is limited by price: 1 gram of Au costs 1,000 rubles on average.

Which home electronics contain gold?

Modern electronic devices contain this element in the form of a thin coating on parts. This minor inclusion helps to significantly reduce the cost of models and at the same time ensure the required level of quality.

Noble metal is present in the circuits of many devices:

• telephones;
• gaming consoles;
• computers;
• photo and video cameras;
• printers;
• TVs;
• measuring instruments.

On a note! The largest amount of gold can be found in radio components produced in the 40-60s of the last century. Moreover, its presence in imported products is significantly lower than in domestic products. In Soviet technology, a high percentage occurs until the mid-80s.

Where exactly is gold used?

Precious metal may be present in the following parts:

• contacts of processors and controllers;
• pins of expansion cards and motherboards;
• hard drive connectors;
• bus contacts (AGP, IDE, PCI);
• headphone plugs and pins of professional sound cards.

Important! The percentage of metal content is minimal; it can be detected by the yellow color of the indicated elements. In budget devices, gold may be absent, as it is replaced by cheaper copper and aluminum.

Soviet-era equipment contains Au in the following components:

• ceramic chip leads (plastic cases may include a small amount) and crystal plates;
• capacitors for military radio stations and generators;
• substrate, external pad and contact terminals of transistors;
• radio tubes (on grids near the cathode);
• relay;
• pins and connectors.

Reference! In terms of gold content, the first place is occupied by capacitors (devices of the Ministry of Defense) and microcircuits.

conclusions

Information about the possible precious metal content can be found in several ways:

• view the device passport;
• use radio engineering literature;
• visit radio amateur sites.

On a note! Upon external inspection of Soviet equipment, the yellow color of the components directly indicates the content of precious metal. For modern technology, this method of determination is not always correct.

We hope that the article helped to understand the question of why gold is used in devices and how to find it.