Technical gold is gold that has not been purified to remove impurities. It cannot be used to make jewelry, as this is prohibited by law, but there are many other areas of its application.
Gold does not occur in nature in its pure form. Since it is widely used as jewelry, currency and raw materials, its reserves are depleting and demand is only increasing, due to the fact that it is a source of capital investment.
Gold from radio components
As you know, this metal is very soft and is not used in its pure form for the production of jewelry; as a rule, an alloy is used that contains 58 or 75 percent pure metal. Depending on the impurities, a wide variety of shades are obtained, including the most unusual ones - blue, purple, green. Products that are of a high standard and sold as jewelry are approved by the state assay office.
Use of gold in industry
Technologically new devices and technologies make it possible to use gold in an unusual role. The number of devices based on boards using gold is growing: tablets, smartphones, laptops. This industry is developing at a tremendous pace: every season new, not always improved, models are released, which are quickly sold on the market, meanwhile, the need for old models is disappearing, consumerism is growing, leaving a lot of outdated equipment on the street. And this is only a small part of the development of the modern world. New models of computers and phones are replacing outdated ones, and this process is not at all due to increasing requirements for technology, but is dictated by marketing specialists.
Modern electronics are designed to last a short period of time solely so that people would pay money more often and buy a new one. Many printers have a limit on the number of pages they can produce. When this number ends, a perfectly working device simply stops printing. In order to make it work, you need to crack the code laid down by the manufacturer. For most consumers, it is easier and cheaper to buy new equipment. Old refrigerators work for several decades, new, modern refrigerators, equipped with imaginable and inconceivable functions, “burn out” in a matter of years. Due to such a huge increase in product consumption, industry requires more materials, including gold.
Gold is actively used in various fields of medicine, especially in dentistry.
For the vast majority of technical devices and in medical technologies, the presence of gold in production has absolutely no effect on the price. This is the reason for the increasing use of gold in industry.
Research conducted around the world is expanding the boundaries of the use of this precious metal. Although the public is unlikely to see anything from science fiction films, research gives positive results and makes it possible to reduce metal consumption, meanwhile expanding the areas of its use.
Today, there are six groups of gold use, knowledge of the latter will help answer the question “which old devices most likely contain gold”:
- Transport;
- Electronics and telecommunications;
- Energy and heat regulation;
- Chemistry and petrochemistry;
- Medicine;
- Nanotechnology.
Despite its weight, gold is actively used in aviation and spacecraft. The precious metal is used where corrosion is unacceptable, namely in the connections of engine parts, shuttle windows are covered with the thinnest gold film to prevent harmful radiation from penetrating inside, and electrical contacts are sealed with it. Since the eighties, the state has spent about forty kilograms of gold on the construction of space shuttles.
In automobile transport, gold plays the most important role as a conductor; thanks to this metal, it is much safer to drive modern cars. Gold is used in microcircuits responsible for critical automotive systems and helps catalyze unburned fuel, which helps reduce emissions of the latter into the atmosphere.
The space sector actively uses yellow metal - for example, modern satellites.
In electronics, the importance of gold is beyond doubt: every smartphone, tablet, iPad, computer, candy bar and cell phone have gold in their circuit boards. It is this metal that contributes to the fast operation and reliability of these devices. Therefore, the gold content, including in Intel processors, is beyond doubt.
Solar energy storage systems also contain gold, which helps improve the efficiency of solar energy collection.
Intel processors contain a high percentage of gold.
In hot climates, using gold in glass window panels helps prevent excess heat from entering, thereby making offices and homes cozier and reducing the need for air conditioning, which in turn reduces energy costs.
In the chemical industry, catalysts containing gold help control chemical reactions and produce the necessary substances. Gold catalysts are used to completely convert feedstocks into chemical products that help convert plastics and paints into relatively harmless substances.
In medicine, gold is used to improve the quality of medical instruments, expanding the usual ways of treating people. Gold is used for arthritis and is found in hearing and eye implants. In the future, it is expected to use gold nanoparticles as drug deliverers to target human organs.
Carbon nanotubes contain precious metal.
Gold is also widely used in nanotechnology: carbon nanotubes, optical chips. The use of gold in this area is due to the exceptional properties of its particles.
Gold/silver ratio
Below is a chart of the price of gold, and the indicator in blue shows the ratio of gold to silver.
The moving average of the odds is marked with a red dotted line, and the lines above and below it illustrate the standard deviation. The green arrows show moments when the ratio broke below the lower deviation line and often returned to the average value and sometimes exceeded it.
A move below the average suggests that from a short-term trading perspective, the gold metal is underperforming silver on a relative basis. Traders can use this as a pairs trading opportunity with a long gold position against a short silver position.
The net result of these combined trades would be a 6.5% return if the ratio reverts to the mean. The stop loss is considered equal to the expected profit.
Successful pairs trading can be done in one of three ways:
- The long position goes up and the short position goes down.
- Long is growing faster than short.
- A short position falls faster than a long position.
What is refining?
The widespread use of gold in industry has also led to negative consequences: there are fans of extracting metal from old microcircuits, that is, carrying out refining.
Refining is the process of obtaining pure precious metals by releasing them from a mixture. This method of obtaining gold from old electronics is also available at home.
How to carry out this refining? In words, everything is quite simple. If you read the reviews, you can understand that everything is not entirely simple. First, you need to find out which microcircuits contain gold.
Buying and selling
Unrefined gold can be purchased from people who extract precious metals from machinery. Why might it be needed? It can, for example, be used to apply decorative coatings or elements. To use it for jewelry purposes, the metal must be melted down, adding copper and silver to the alloy.
You can get this gold yourself. To do this, you need to master the technique of cleaning it. There are many ways to do this, but most of them use a substance called aqua regia. Aqua regia is a very strong solvent made by mixing hydrochloric and nitric acid. There are other methods, but most often one of the acids is still present there, so the procedure is unsafe.
What is the price per gram of this gold? Its cost rarely exceeds that set at a pawnshop. However, it is worth warning that buying and selling such gold is illegal.
Microcircuits containing gold
First of all, it is worth looking for gold in domestic radio components of the Soviet period - in imported ones the content of the precious metal is minimal. In many microcircuits, the gold is hidden under the copper casing. You can find out exactly the content of gold alloy in old microcircuits only by looking at the passport for this or that equipment.
Many microcircuits contain gold.
Gold is also found in round, ceramic, planar DIP microcircuits and transistors, plastic cases, and power transistors. In ALS indicators and diodes. In domestically produced connectors, pins with white or yellow coating of contact parts. In lamellas from boards. In ceramic monolithic capacitors of some brands, tantalum capacitors. In some switches, toggle switches, buttons, resistors. In rotation angle and pressure sensors. TPP and TPR thermocouples, thermal resistance, temperature sensors, strain gauges, pressure sensors. The installation wires have fluoroplastic insulation. In some generator lamps, in printed circuit boards with radioelements.
Much more gold is in Soviet computers. To achieve high performance, it was necessary to use a lot of precious metal. Most of these machines have been scrapped and replaced with modern and powerful ones, but such equipment is still found today and a decent amount of gold can be obtained from it.
List of precious metal content in old computers.
The easiest way to extract gold is from this technique. However, non-working equipment can be handed over to special collection points, which themselves sell it at their discretion and make a profit.
Among such equipment there may be a working one, but it is very expensive if offered to collectors.
Before proceeding directly to gold extraction, it is necessary to disassemble the device.
Technical analysis of the silver market
Silver prices remain in a long-term uptrend as the 50-day moving average continues to move steadily above the 200-day. However, from a medium-term perspective, the price is now in a wide range between $21.75 (support) and $29.80 (resistance).
Silver prices have recently turned around the resistance of the aforementioned range, and traders looking to go long may want to wait out further weakness before entering the market.
In what parts can you find gold?
Microcircuits. In them, gold is present in the form of gold-plated leads pressed into plastic or ceramic cases. The mass of gold leads is one third of the mass of the microcircuit. The gold content can vary from one to five percent.
Radio tubes
In them, gold is deposited on a grid located very close to the cathode. This is necessary so that the grid does not become a source of electrons.
Transistors
Gold is placed under conductors and crystals.
Don’t rush to throw away your old equipment - many of its parts contain gold.
Capacitors
Gold-bearing capacitors were used in military radio stations and generators. One capacitor measures up to forty centimeters in height and up to twenty centimeters in width. Such a capacitor contains up to seven grams of gold.
Resistors
Semiconductors, diodes, stabilizers, optocouplers, thyristors.
Connectors
Most older connectors can be gold plated.
