Copper coils are used in almost all electronic devices and components. Depending on the area of application and the intended use, the copper content of the coils varies significantly and can even be very high. Despite the plastic content, we can rework copper coils and extract the copper as a secondary raw material.

Circuit breakers are essential in all electrical installations in buildings to guarantee our safety, as well as that of our devices and buildings. Copper, silver, brass, aluminium and iron are used inside this important component.

Ceramic is often used in electrical engineering due to its insulating properties. In the case of these ceramic rings, the surface is coated in silver to make them electrically conductive.

Watch straps and watch-cases from exclusive manufacturers often contain gold, silver, palladium or even platinum.

For the production of switches and connectors, silver-plated contacts and pins are often made from punched strips which, in this case, are brass. The silver-plating is very often invisible to the naked eye, but the silver content can be accurately determined in an analysis.

As with almost all precious metal-bearing materials, this also comes from electrical engineering. The silver-plating is not clearly visible to the human eye. However, the silver content can easily be determined in an analysis.

This plastic connector is used in automotive electronics. The internal plug-in connections and contacts are often silver or gold-plated to protect them against corrosion.

These ceramic chips are often used to mount PCBs and other electronic components. The chips primarily contain gold and silver but traces of palladium can often also be found.

Pin connectors are often installed on computer mainboards and other PCBs and are coated with a thin gold layer to increase conductivity and ensure that it is retained on the long-term. For this reason, the gold layer in the low dead weight is often relatively high.

These small connector strips are mainly used in electronic devices where a reliable and accurate data transmission is extremely important. In addition, these contacts are often coated with a covering gold layer.

These rivets were produced from the basic material brass and were coated with an ultra-thin layer of silver. The value of the material can therefore significantly increase as a result of recycling.

To ensure both long-term durability and conductivity silver-containing adhesives are often used to connect electronic components to each other or to basic circuit boards.

To increase safety standards, fingerprint scanners are installed in laptops, buildings and vehicles, for example. These components contain both gold and silver.

Often, several tonnes of transformer copper windings are installed in high current transformers. These copper windings are wrapped in paper during the operation of the transformer and are dipped in oil for insulation purposes.

In mobile communication and broadcasting technology, copper cables are often provided with gold-plated connectors to ensure long-term conductivity and corrosion protection

In electrical engineering gold and silver coatings are frequently used in switches for internal contacts.

Such relay springs with mounted silver contacts were often installed in old telephone systems and switching units to ensure a consistent connection quality over many years.

In many of our modern devices such as smartphones, mobiles, laptops and tablet PCs, these reading devices are used for SIM cards. The contacts of the reading device are gold-plated as a high connection quality is particularly important for telephone conversations

Due to their rigidity and material properties, these copper foils are often used if PCBs cannot be installed. The contacts and conducting paths on these films are frequently gold-plated.

Conventional plastic circuit boards can usually not be installed in devices with high operating temperatures. In such cases, these ceramic circuit boards are used and are coated with copper and gold.

For particularly high-quality electrical components, completely gold-plated screws and washers such as these are used to also ensure high corrosion resistance and conductivity at the connection points.

One or two of these lambda sensors are installed in almost all vehicles to monitor the exhaust fumes. These sensors mainly consist of chrome, nickel and iron and contain a platinum-based probe tip.

In radio and transmission technology, components are often installed in silver-plated aluminium or brass casing to protect against external influences.

To connect the cable connections in radio and transmission masts, these silver-plated brass screw connections are used due to their excellent conductivity.

Such chip, SIM and decoder cards contain a low gold content on the contact surface and this can be extracted when recycling.

For many electronic components, screw connections are also used as wires. For this purpose, they are silver-plated as shown in order to increase their conductivity.

These, or similar relays, are often installed on PCBs and in electronic components. They may then contain both silver and gold contacts.

Electronic components and assemblies must be particularly corrosion-resistant, weatherproof and reliable for military applications. Gold-plated components are therefore most commonly used.

Such gold-plated pins are pressed with cable ends so that they can be inserted into plugs and other connectors which must demonstrate high corrosion resistance and conductivity.