Printed Circuit Boards PC Contain 100 g of Gold per tonne

Some circuit boards (such as power supply boards and electronic boards found in monitors) contain on average less than 100 g of gold per tonne. They are «low grade» boards. However, some boards (e.g. graphic boards, audio boards and network boards) contain a lot more precious metal. «high grade» boards contain between 400 and 500 g/tonne, and are found in laptops and mobile phones. «Very high grade» boards, containing more than 500 g/tonne, come from large mainframe computers or phone centres.

Once at the smelter, the different metals (gold, copper, silver, selenium,tellurium, lead, palladium, etc.) are recovered through complex processes. Due to the complexity of the technologies used and given that recovery practices can be highly polluting, the entrepreneur must sell the printed circuits to appropriate industries that can conduct recovery operations in an environmentally sound manner.