The most valuable metal by economic value per ton of device in your phone is gold, followed by silver and palladium.
Countries such as China, Russia, Chile, Australia, South Africa, and Mexico supply many of the minerals necessary for cell phone production. A few of these minerals include copper, gold, tungsten, silver, magnesium, tin, and aluminum.
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.
Here are a few examples:
Gold in the iPhone
Many of these components are plated with gold. Gold appears in the printed circuit boards (PCBs), camera modules, and internal connectors.
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.
Other precious metals
Silver: A ton of mobile phones contains approximately 3.14 kilograms of silver, which equates to 0.357 grams of silver per device. Palladium: The same amount of mobile phones contains about 130 grams of palladium, or 0.0148 grams per device.
Gold: This precious metal doesn't just make very pretty jewellery – it's highly prized for use in making mobile phones because it is chemically stable and conducts electricity. Small amounts of gold are used to make the mobile phone circuit board. The world's top exporter of gold is China, followed by South Africa.
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.
There is about . 5 oz of copper in your mobile phone. That's more than all the other metals in your phone and more than 12% of your phone's total weight.
Tantalum is used to manufacture the anodes in smartphone capacitors, the components that store electrical charge. Tantalum is extracted from the minerals tantalite, wodginite and microlite.
While there's no official number for how much silver is in the latest iPhones, estimates based on older models suggest it's around 0.34 grams per device. That might not sound like much, but silver is essential to how an iPhone functions.
Mobile phones also offer a notable source of recoverable gold. Though individual smartphones have about 0.034 grams of gold, their prevalence makes them significant collectively. Gold is most concentrated in SIM cards and circuit boards of these devices.
Not all old phones are created equal; some have become collector's items or retained resale value due to rarity, design, or historical significance. In this section, we break down which models from popular brands like Nokia and Apple are still worth money today.
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).
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.
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.
Its natural flexibility means it can be made very thin, perfect for the tiny electronic components in modern phones. This precious metal can be found in the pins that carry electrical signals, the connectors that link different components, and the circuit boards that control everything.
According to the International Platinum Group Metals Association, in the electronics sector, most palladium is used for multi-layer ceramic (chip) capacitors (MLCC). MLCCs store energy in electronic devices such as broadcasting equipment, mobile telephones, computers, electronic lighting and high voltage circuits.
Gallium, germanium, yttrium, lanthanum, praseodymium, europium, gadolinium, terbium and dysprosium each play a specialised role in the backlighting systems and colour display components of modern devices.
The next time you gear up for an outdoor adventure, keep it simple: Put an Iridium GO! or Iridium GO! exec on your packing list. They'll turn your smartphone into a satellite phone whenever you need it, wherever you GO!
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.
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.
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.