Neodymium, europium, terbium and other rare earth metals that were once barely heard of are now commonplace in phone touchscreens, electric vehicle motors, wind turbines and other modern technologies due to their useful magnetic and electronic properties.
Bastnaesite is a source of rare-earth elements used to produce magnets in speakers, microphones, and vibration motors. Germanium China1 Sphalerite Conducts electricity Battery, display, electronics and circuitry, and vibration components.
Lithium is used in (you guessed it) lithium-ion batteries, which are used in most modern phones. Cobalt can be used to coat copper wires in order to make microchips more reliable. Gold and silver are used in circuit boards, along with other materials like copper and palladium.
If you use an iPhone, an REE called lanthanum helps make sure the screen has a vivid color pop, while neodymium and dysprosium are credited for helping the device vibrate, among other uses. In electric cars, magnets, which are used to help power the vehicle, rely heavily on rare earths such as neodymium.
A typical iPhone is estimated to house around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium and less than one-thousandth of a gram of platinum. It also contains the less valuable but still significant aluminium (25g) and copper (around 15g).
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.
A single mobile phone contains around 0.04 g of gold, which may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that there are estimated to be more cell phones on the planet than people.
In fact, computer parts contain the most gold. It is possible to recover gold from computer boards; it is also possible to extract gold from motherboards, integrated circuits, contacts, pins and printed circuit boards.
Every smartphone contains precious metals including gold, silver, copper, platinum and palladium.
All smartphones use the same rare-earth metals.
Tantalum from coltan is used to manufacture tantalum capacitors which are used for mobile phones, personal computers, automotive electronics, and cameras. Coltan mining is widespread in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Rare-earth elements (REEs) are used as components in high technology devices, including smart phones, digital cameras, computer hard disks, fluorescent and light-emitting-diode (LED) lights, flat screen televisions, computer monitors, and electronic displays.
In other words, about 1 metric tonne of smartphone handsets could yield 340g of gold, which on current gold prices is more than A$18,000. So if we're smart, we should be extracting as much value as possible from these disused smartphones through recycling.
Gold is used in the manufacturing of SIM cards due to it being a very excellent conductor of electricity. Other than this, it is also very durable. However, each SIM card contains very little amount of gold, and you need thousands of SIM cards to be able to extract a few grams of gold.
Find My SIM Card Number on an Android
Go to Settings > About Phone > Status, then scroll down and locate the ICCID (SIM Card) number.
1. Copper. What is copper used for? Copper is a vital element used to produce wiring for all kinds of electronics.
There are 0.034 grams of gold in each cell phone, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That's the equivalent of 0.001 troy ounces, worth about $1.82 at today's prices. There are also 16 grams of copper, worth about 12 cents, 0.35 grams of silver, worth 36 cents, and 0.00034 grams of platinum, valued at 2 cents.
In brief, a Computer has around 0.310 gram of Gold which is worth around $20. Gold is present in Microprocessor, Wire tip coating and other components in a Computer. Extracting gold for several computers together is cost productive.
As its name implies, a 24K gold iPhone is an iPhone that has been plated with 24K gold. Basically, the casing of the iPhone is made out of gold while the internal components are still made out of the same internal electronic components that cause iPhones to work the way that they do. True 24K gold iPhone are rare.
Copper makes up the connective wires. A study out of the Harare Institute of Technology also listed that printed circuit boards contain, “about 20 wt% copper, 0.04 wt% gold, 0.15 wt% silver, and 0.01 wt% palladium,” with wt% representing percentage by weight.