Olympic athletes continually break new records, push their physical limits, and do the unimaginable. Decorated Olympians will have amassed a collection of gold, silver, and bronze medals marking their success.
Image Credit: Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD)
This article examines whether Olympic medals are made of gold, silver, or bronze as their names imply.
The Composition of Olympic Gold Medals
Olympic gold medals primarily comprise silver with just a small percentage of gold. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has developed specific rules around the design and production of Olympic medals, specifying their raw material composition as:
- First place (gold medal): This medal is primarily comprised of silver with a purity of at least 92.5%. These medals are plated with at least 6 grams of pure gold.
- Second place (silver medal): This medal is comprised of silver with a purity of at least 92.5%.
- Third place (bronze medal): This medal consists of bronze, an alloy composed primarily of copper and another metal such as zinc or tin.
These specifications reveal that Olympic gold medals’ base material is silver, and that they are plated with over 6 grams of gold on their surface. The silver medals are composed of silver; however, and the bronze medals are comprised of bronze (a mixture of copper and another metal).
Determining Gold Content in Medals and Other Prized Items
Many other jewelry and souvenirs labeled as gold and silver are not pure gold and silver. It is especially important to identify their authenticity when trading these precious metals as commodities; X-ray fluorescence, also known as XRF, is a useful tool in this assessment.
XRF is a nondestructive analysis technique suitable for verifying precious metal content and karatage (gold purity) without damaging these extremely valuable objects.
The Vanta™ handheld XRF analyzer from Evident Scientific offers rapid, precise, and accurate on-the-spot elemental analysis of gold, silver, platinum, and other precious metals. Vanta analyzers are ideally suited to the determination of karat values for quality control and pricing in the trade or manufacture of gold or jewelry.
The Vanta analyzer benefits from a simple, accessible, and customizable user interface. Users with little or no experience can quickly master the instrument’s operations with minimal training, with users able to download the results to rapidly produce a certificate.
Handheld XRF analysis of gold and jewelry. Image Credit: Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD)
Turning E-Waste into Treasure with ‘Green’ Medals
Medals awarded at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics were composed of recycled electronic waste. An impressive amount of gold can be found in old home electronics; for example, there is 80x as much gold in 1 ton of cell phones as there is in some gold mines.
The Japanese Olympic Committee committed to reducing the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics’ carbon footprint, innovating Olympic medal production by using recycled electronics to make ‘green’ medals.
The people of Japan were called upon to donate their used electronic products, with the required precious metals for the medals then extracted from this e-waste.
The initiative was well received, with many people engaging. As a result, 18,000 collection boxes were placed throughout the country, and 90% of Japan’s local authorities participated.
The recycling initiative collected 78,985 tons of discarded gadgets over 2 years, including over 6 million used cell phones. Other donated devices included digital cameras, laptops, and handheld gaming devices.
Collection of cell phones for recycling. Image Credit: Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD)
The collected devices yielded 32 kg (70.5 lb) of pure gold, 3500 kg (7716 lb) of pure silver, and 2200 kg (4850 lb) of pure copper.
This provided enough recycled materials to create all 5,000 medals, marking a first for the Olympic Games and a major step forward in the global movement to make sporting events more sustainable.
Elemental Analysis of Electronic Waste and Other Scrap
Vanta XRF analyzers can rapidly and accurately sort recycled electronic waste and other scrap. The advanced instruments can reliably identify the majority of alloys and pure metals in just 1-2 seconds.
The analyzer can also provide users with detailed information on a material’s chemical composition, facilitating the quick and precise identification of pure metal and alloy grades.
A technician uses the Vanta XRF analyzer to quickly analyze precious metals found in automotive catalyst scrap. Image Credit: Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD)
The Vanta analyzer is a versatile tool for scrap recycling and precious metals testing. It can perform a variety of tests.
It can be used to sort heavy alloys based on the relatively low contents of silicon and aluminum elements.
It is also possible to analyze motherboards’ electronic components, identify electronic components containing precious metals (gold, silver, palladium, etc.), evaluate copper content in fine materials, and sort and identify toxic substances and lead-containing solders.
The instrument can also rapidly sort lead-containing glass and glass-ceramic products from recycling lines or detect toxic elements in materials.
The Vanta analyzer is suitable for analyzing automotive catalyst scrap containing precious metals such as platinum, palladium, and rhodium.
It can also be used in furnace and melt operations, monitoring the chemical composition of slags as they melt to control quality and predict the life of a furnace or to sort and evaluate recovered slags from a range of melt operations.
Acknowledgments
Produced from materials originally authored by Sihan Tan from Evident Scientific.
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD).
For more information on this source, please visit Evident Corporation (XRF / XRD).