Yes, your iPhone contains tiny amounts of gold, primarily in the circuit boards, connectors, and cameras, used for reliable conductivity and corrosion resistance; while the value per phone is small (around 7-36 milligrams), recycling millions of phones can recover significant quantities of precious metals, with Apple using 100% recycled gold in some iPhone components.
Gold in the iPhone
Gold appears in the printed circuit boards (PCBs), camera modules, and internal connectors. Apple uses gold for its resistance to corrosion and its ability to maintain reliable electrical contact. Even in microgram quantities, the gold in an iPhone contributes to its durability and performance.
The Gold In iPhones
An iPhone consists of about 0.0018 grams of Gold. That isn't even up to half a gram, not even a quarter. That is, estimated to be about 0.0012 ounces of real Gold. It also consists of 0.012 ounces of silver and 0.000012 ounces of platinum worth $1.52, $0.24, and $0.017.
Gold Content in an iPhone: The Real Numbers
According to a 2023 report by the US Geological Survey, a typical iPhone contains approximately 0.034 grams of gold. This amount is worth about $2 at current market prices (as of June 2024, gold trades around $60 per gram, source: USGS, 2023).
Recycling and Gold Recovery
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.
Gold has maintained a high financial value, reaching over $2,000 an ounce. At these prices, a skilled recycler extracting gold from electronics can expect to receive over $10,000 worth of gold from just one ton of computer circuit boards.
Among consumer electronics, computer components are the richest in gold. Circuit boards, especially motherboards, feature gold in their connectors and pins. CPUs are particularly valuable, with older processors containing 0.2 to 0.5 grams of gold each.
The circuit board, also known as the motherboard, is like the brain of the cell phone. It houses the phone's main components and enables everything to communicate. Gold is used in the connectors of the integrated circuits and the memory chip within this circuit board.
Here are a few examples:
Some other sources estimate that your average computer contains about 1/5th of a gram, or about $12 worth, of gold in them. On the other hand, laptops typically contain about 1/10th of a gram of gold, or around $6 worth. However, the actual value will depend entirely on the type of e-waste you are looking at.
Did you know there is gold in your cell phone? That forgotten device in your drawer is not just taking up space—it contains precious metals that could be recycled and reused. Your phone needs gold to be reliable and work properly.
With e-waste reaching record levels, scientists have unveiled a sustainable method to extract gold from discarded electronics. The technique offers a cleaner alternative to current practices. As the digital age accelerates, the world is facing a mounting challenge: electronic waste.
The notch was a signature feature of older iPhone models, designed primarily to house the front camera and Face ID sensors.
Palladium is so rare that all of the palladium ever mined, could fit into a typically-sized living room. The iPhone has 0.015g of palladium in it. Palladium is sometimes used in jewelry and is hypoallergenic.
Fancy smartphones use rare materials like gold, platinum, and diamonds. These materials make them strong and beautiful. The market for luxury phones is growing fast.
Mobile devices like Apple's iPhone contain at least 30 chemical elements — from common metals like aluminum, copper, lithium, silver and gold, to rare earth elements like yttrium, terbium, lanthanum, neodymium and dysprosium, all of which are extracted from the earth through mining.
The content of copper in a mobile device far exceeds the amount of any other metal. Copper conducts electricity and heat and comes from the source mineral chalcopyrite.
What metals does a typical iPhone contain? According to 911Metallurgist.com, each iPhone contains an average of $1.58 worth of gold, $0.36 of silver, $0.12 of copper, $0.05 of aluminum, and $0.02 of platinum.
The amount of gold in SIM cards is very small, usually measured in milligrams or even micrograms. For example, a typical SIM card may contain around 8 milligrams of gold, which is equivalent to 0.00028 ounces.
According to my knowledge, you can get 15.5 grams of gold from 1 kilogram of rams. This is because the gold content in rams is about 0.155%, which means that there is 15.5 milligrams of gold in every gram of rams. So, if you have 1 kilogram of rams, which is equal to 1000 grams, you will have 15.5 grams of gold.
Remotes contain only a few cents' worth of gold that can be found on the edges of the printed circuit boards they contain. But if you do the math, you'll see that a few hundred remotes can be worth more money than you suspect.