Precious Metal and Gold Facts

Any rare, natural and metallic chemical element that possesses high economic value is categorized as a precious metal. Falling under this classification include such elements as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium and platinum, and the best known of them all, silver and gold.

All these metals being natural chemical elements, they, along with copper, cannot be manufactured like all other metals. This makes them rare and of course, precious. Also referred to as noble metals, precious metals resist most types of chemical and environmental attacks.

Of all these precious metals, gold takes the most attention, and deservedly so. One of the most naturally beautiful elements on earth, Gold possesses a luster and attractiveness that makes it a much-sought after precious metal for jewelry. It is assigned the chemical symbol Au, which is short for the Latin word for gold, ‘Aurum’ which means ‘Glowing Dawn. A very dense metal with a density of 19.32 g/cm3, gold melts at a temperature of 1064 degrees centigrade. Its boiling point, meanwhile, is 2808 degrees centigrade.

The attractiveness of gold is one of the reasons why wars have been fought over this rare precious metal. However, gold possesses other properties that make it a cut above the rest of the precious metals.

One is that gold is largely inert, which means it never rusts or decays. Nitric acid, which dissolves silver and base metals, does not have that effect on gold. Due to its being inert, gold does not cause skin irritations. If your gold jewelry gives you rashes, then you probably have jewelry that has little or no gold in it.

Another is its extreme malleability and ductility. One ounce of gold can be hammered into a sheet that is 5 millionths of an inch thick. A gold sheet this thin can occupy more than a hundred square feet. The same amount of gold can also be stretched into a wire 50 miles long. This property makes gold such an in demand material for industry. Modern industrial uses for gold include dentistry and electronics.

This same malleability, however, also makes pure gold too soft or weak for use in jewelry. To increase strength and durability, gold is alloyed or mixed with other metals.

But what makes gold such a precious commodity is its rarity. Gold has been mined and sought after for thousands of years, but in all of human history, only 165,000 tons of the precious metal have been mined as of 2009. It cannot be manufactured, and natural gold reserves are nearly, if not already depleted.