Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Why do you suppose were at a 7 year low in gold recycling? It mentions something interesting about gold slowly getting replaced with something else in new electronics. I will read more about it later
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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If you consider a typical electronics gizmo .
We have been told Gold is the best for conductivity and being able to be thinned with substance to it.
I once heard an ounce of Gold could be thinned out the size of a foot ball field . Those unique qualities
being said , Gold could be replaced with a better conductor, I believe the computer industry lowered the Gold content
by using silicon & silicon could transfer information faster .
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Since around 2002 industry has been using much more efficient methods for plating gold over copper in regards to electronics. This may perhaps account for part of the decline, but I doubt seriously that is the case. When laws were passed to prevent electronics from being dumped in landfills, there was a huge quantity of material that was available, almost overnight. I know this because I was selling containers of e-scrap overseas around 2003. I know better now, and if in the same position would not have been doing so. Regardless, the places where e-scrap was being shipped more or less were processing legally, and reporting what they were processing. Since that time, until now, places like China have enacted very strict laws in regards to processing e-scrap, and made importing into their countries very strict just this last year.Originally Posted by ParkerFlyer4
What we see now is massive amounts of e-scrap, from worldwide sources, being shipped to places like West African nations. It is done so under the guise of electronics for sale, in a secondary market, or re-purposed goods. The reality is that it's e-scrap, and being processed illegally without government controls. Because it is not legally being processed, the gold is not sold as scrap, but instead is sold as "gold dust". Google "gold dust for sale" and you will soon realize that 99% of the people offering gold dust are most likely from West African nations. It is sold as gold dust from mining operations. Just this fact alone could account for the change in recycled to mined gold as the article does mention the fact that mining has picked up the slack where recycling has trailed off.
So it's very likely we have not seen a decline in the amount of gold recycled, but only a decline in the amount that is reported as coming from recycled sources. Also, refineries able to do so, would hold onto as much gold as their business model would make possible, until such a time as gold prices go back up. This is a common practice, if you check the downtrends of reported, recycled gold, you will also notice that it happened at the same time as gold prices fell from $1600 per ounce to what they are today.
I try to retain as much gold as I am able.....
Just as another side note, it is noteworthy that the gold buying industry, which would account for a good percentage of recycled gold, has been experiencing a downturn. This is because of several factors, first, the price of gold has gone way down. And second, the economy is doing marginally better, which relieves as people do not have to sell their gold in order to make their bills. And third, because most of what people would consider scrap gold, has been sold leaving only valuable heirlooms or pieces that the people who own them are emotionally attached to in some way.
Regardless, we could guess the why, but until there are controlled studies, and rigid ways to collect the data, we cannot be positive about anything at all. We can only speculate and guess.
Scott
Last edited by NobleMetalWorks; 02-13-2015 at 06:48 PM.
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan
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Silver actually conducts electricity better than gold, matter of fact if we are being totally honest about the resistance, and conductivity of metals, silver is the absolute best conductor of electricity, followed not by gold, but instead by copper. That's right, copper conducts electricity better than gold, not by much, but it does. Please refer to this link or google it:
Table of Electrical Resistivity and Conductivity
So now you are probably asking, "why use gold at all"? It's simple, silver, and copper, oxidize over time. Meaning that they oxidize in the presence of oxygen, they are reactive. A silver or copper coin will turn colors, while a gold coin will never unless alloyed and not pure, with some metal that does, and there is enough to react with oxygen.
So gold is plated over copper to prevent it from oxidizing, this is why industry is not required to use a lot of gold, but instead, only enough to cover the copper so that it does not react with the oxygen in the air. If copper does react, it build up copper oxides which cause resistance and thus the copper no longer is as conductive as it would be if not oxidized.
But you are correct, gold can be stretched, made to be extremely flat:
Source: Gold Fun FactsGold is so malleable that a single ounce of it (about the size of a quarter) can be beaten into a thin continuous sheet measuring roughly 100 square feet. That means it would take 576 ounces (or just 36 pounds) of gold to completely cover a football field, or a whopping 367,211 ounces (or about 11 tons) of gold to completely blanket all of Central Park.
One ounce of gold can be stretched into a thin wire measuring only five microns, or five millionths of a meter, thick, that would reach in a straight line from midtown Manhattan across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport, Connecticut--a distance of 80 kilometers or 50 miles.
So far as Silicon is concerned, the computer industry uses silicon because it is a semi-conductor and can be made to act as a conductor or insulator, which allows for the printing of circuits including gates, resistors, etc. You might be thinking of the fairly recent invention, using carbon atoms and building them into nano-tubes which do conduct electricity not only better than gold, but also better than even silver.
Hope this helps,
Scott
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