Adiamond-encrusted iPhonecan set you back anything from £10,000 to £10 million. If that kind of bling is a little out of your price range, dom’t worry. Every smartphone contains precious metals including gold, silver, copper, platinum and palladium. These precious metals are now looking more precious than ever, as increased smartphone demand means that we face the prospect of one day no longer being able to afford to dig them out of the ground. Suddenly your smartphone is looking a lot more valuable than you might think.
The hidden value of the metals inside our old electronics, and how we might best extract those materials is one of the hottest topics in WEEE (electronic recycling) today.
What Metals are in my Smartphone?
Mobile phones contain many valuable metals and uncommon earths. An average iPhone contains around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver and 0.015g of palladium. This is in addition to 1000th of a gram of platinum. It additionally contains 25g of aluminum, and 15g of copper. It’s not just mobile phones that contain these valuable elements. Everything from telephones to PCs contain them. Guiyu in China forms is a key location that highlights the squander of these precious metals. In 2008, up to 80% of material handled there originated from abroad .
One metric ton of iPhones contains 300 times more gold than a tonne of gold ore and 6.5 times more silver than a tonne of silver ore.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Smartphones also contain a whole host of uncommon earth components. Some of these components are plentifully available, however they are difficult to mine. These include yttrium, lanthanum, terbium, neodymium, gadolinium and praseodymium. In addition to these metals, there’s also plastic and glass. Then there’s the battery. So all in all there are quite a significant number of components that we need to recycle.
More than 2 billion people on the planet now own a mobile phone. This makes for a lot of waste when they are no longer required. This number is likely to rise over the next 10 years, as more and more entry-level phones are manufactured.
Why is this such a Problem?
The fact is that 2 billion people in the world own a mobile phone. This means that potentially 2 billion people will upgrade to a new one in the next 5 years. And what happends to people’s old phones when they upgrade? Some are recycled, but a large number are put in a drawer and forgotten, or simply sent to landfill. We only correctly recycle 10% of mobile phones at the end of their useful life.
Therefore if you have a load of mobile phones from yesteryear gathering dust in your home somewhere, you could be sitting on a potential goldmine. Experts predict that we could soon be in the same predicament with precious metals used in smartphones as we currently are for oil. However the difference is that these precious metals can be recycled and reused – but only if we dispose of them properly.
Just in case you’re considering collecting people’s old mobile phones and starting your own electronic goldmine, we can confirm that it will be a waste of time. The miniscule sums of precious metals in each phone mean that the value is incredibly low. It’s only on an enormous scale that any significant amount of money could be made from the metals inside the phones. The prospect seems a lot more tempting on a large scale. For example, a million mobile phones would contain 16 tonnes of copper, 350kg of silver, 34kg of gold and 15kg of palladium.
FAQs
In fact, gold is only one of around 60 raw materials that are used in cell phones. 80 percent of it can be recycled, including silver and copper. One million cell phones contain 150 kilograms of silver and several tons of copper.
How much precious metal is in a mobile phone? ›
WHAT EXACTLY IS IN MY SMARTPHONE? Smartphones are pocket-sized vaults of precious metals and rare earths. 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.
What are the metals found in your cellphone? ›
Gallium provides light emitting diode (LED) backlighting. Bauxite is the pri- mary source of this commodity. Sphalerite is the source of indium (used in the screen's conductive coating) and germanium (used in displays and LEDs). The content of copper in a mobile device far exceeds the amount of any other metal.
How much gold is in an old phone? ›
There is actual gold in your phone, used because of its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. However, the amount of gold contained in a phone is smaller than one might expect. On average, a smartphone might have around 0.034 grams of gold.
How many cell phones does it take to get an ounce of gold? ›
Did you know, for example, that it only takes around 41 mobile phones to recover 1g of gold? The price of gold is currently around US$1,700 (£1,365) per ounce, which is roughly US$60 per gram. That means there's about US$1.50 of gold in every junked device.
How much gold is there in a SIM card? ›
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. This means that you would need around 3,571 SIM cards to get one ounce of gold.
Do SIM cards have gold in them? ›
Yes. 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.
How much gold is in a smart TV? ›
Not very much. In fact, almost none. Gold, at $1900 per troy ounce (31.3 grms), is too costly to use very much of it in any electronic device. The cheap TV sets will use tin plating where gold might be used in the higher end TVs.
Which electronics have the most gold? ›
Among all home devices, computers and televisions typically contain the most gold. Gold is also found in the circuit boards of earlier generations of cameras, radios, and media players. Traces of gold can be found in other electronics like game consoles, tablets, and phones.
Are there crystals in cell phones? ›
The crystals in your phone or computer are the same as the ones in a quartz watch. They provide the clock speed for the processor. The MEMS are Micro Electro Mechanical Systems. That is microscopic moving parts etched out of silicon.
There's yttrium and lanthanum and cerium and terbium. Europium, gadolinium, dysprosium, neodymium… of students memorize the periodic table of elements. But they're likely in your pocket.
What rare earth metals are in mobile phones? ›
Indium: This rare metal is vital for touch screens – it's used in indium tin oxide, which is transparent and conducts electricity. It's also used in solar panels. Tantalum: This highly corrosion-resistant metal is a major component of micro-capacitors in our phones, but also important for hearing aids and pacemakers.
How much is 1gram of gold worth? ›
Gold price and chart
| Weight | EUR | USD |
|---|
| Gold Price per Gram | €70.37 | $76.44 |
| Gold Price per Ounce | €2188.87 | $2377.68 |
| Gold Price per Kilo | €70373.8 | $76444.24 |
| 24H Change | -0.38 % | -0.50 % |
Smartphone Recycling will pay a seller up to $400 for their old cell phone. If the device is damaged or in decent condition, Smartphone Recycling will buy it from you at a price between $50 and $300 depending on the model of the device.
What rare metals are in your phone? ›
There's yttrium and lanthanum and cerium and terbium. Europium, gadolinium, dysprosium, neodymium… of students memorize the periodic table of elements. But they're likely in your pocket.
Where are the precious metals in cell phones? ›
Capacitors made of the rare, hard, blue-gray metal tantalum are used for filtering and frequency tuning. Nickel is also used in capacitors and in mobile phone electrical connections. Another silvery metal, gallium, is used in semiconductors.
What rare metals are in mobile phones? ›
Nickel is used in the microphone diaphragm (that vibrates in response to sound waves). Alloys containing rare earths neodymium, praseodymium and gadolinium are used in the magnets contained in the speaker and microphone. Neodymium, terbium and dysprosium are also used in the vibration unit.
Mobile phones contain many valuable metals and uncommon earths. An average iPhone contains around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver and 0.015g of palladium. This is in addition to 1000th of a gram of platinum. It additionally contains 25g of aluminum, and 15g of copper. It’s not just mobile phones that contain these valuable elements. Everything from telephones to PCs contain them. Guiyu in China forms is a key location that highlights the squander of these precious metals. In 2008, up to 80% of material handled there originated from abroad .