7 Advantages of Industrial Gold Plating Services

Humans have used gold throughout history, mainly for aesthetic reasons, though today’s use of the metal includes many industrial and practical purposes. Though its rarity contributes to the cost of any product incorporating gold, a special place in the industry has carved a niche for this precious metal. Today, several cutting-edge applications have made industrial gold plating services integral to many modern industries.

Industrial Gold Plating: 7 Advantages for Modern Applications

Gold offers numerous benefits, especially for finishes that utilize gold. Plating services employ gold to protect products, especially within electronics, even though it often leads to higher upfront costs than other metal finishing methods. Yet despite the expense, this valuable element’s many advantageous qualities make modern gold plating services useful for specific applications.

Some of the many benefits of industrial gold plating include:

1. Aesthetics

Since gold neither oxidizes nor tarnishes, it’s often applied to surfaces to provide long-lasting decorative finishes as gold plating. Services that apply gold plating to less expensive metals or alloys can lower costs while making products more attractive. 

2. Biocompatibility

Industrial gold plating is used for medical marker bands for catheters, heart stints, orthopedic implants, surgical implements, and other medical devices. It doesn’t cause adverse physical reactions when exposed to human tissue. Its biocompatibility also makes gold plating useful for dental implants and fillings.

3. Corrosion Resistance & Non-Reactivity

Because of the unreactive nature of gold, plating services often use the metal to provide corrosion resistance to items that must withstand extreme conditions. Industrial gold plating can endure corrosion from brines and salts, hydrogen sulfide, oxidation, mineral acids, and other destructive elements without compromising its properties. In addition to resisting corrosion, gold neither react nor forms compounds with other components, which is why, in nature, it’s possible to come across nuggets of pure gold. Plating services often coat battery contacts, interconnect pins, springs, and other comparable components with thin layers of gold.

4. Durability

As a solid metal, items coated with industrial gold plating are considerably more durable, extending the lifespan of all kinds of products. Gold plating can also prevent the gradual wear of contact surfaces due to friction—often called fretting. Services that deal with finishing metals can even customize the thickness of coatings by adding multiple thin layers of gold.

5. Ductility & Malleability 

Though gold is strong, it’s also the most ductile and malleable metal, easily hammered into thin sheets. This makes industrial gold plating an excellent choice for coating components like springs or flexible electrical contacts. Often, gold plating services coat metals like nickel with extremely thin layers for printed circuit boards (PCBs) or other electronic components.

6. Electrical & Thermal Conductivity

Gold is the third most electrically and thermally conductive metal after copper and silver. Gold’s noncorrosive properties make the metal a better choice for specific applications. Under extreme conditions, gold provides better electrical conductivity than copper or silver, which corrode over time. For this reason, gold plating services often apply a thin coating to copper and stainless steel contacts to provide a more reliable path for electricity. Industrial gold plating can also be applied to ceramics or plastics to make them conductive. Due to its properties promoting thermal conductivity, gold is often used for applications in extreme environments like outer space or down-the-hole drilling methods often used by the oil and gas industry.

7. Heat Resistance

Gold’s melting point is 1947.52°F (1064.18°C), one of the highest melting points of any elemental metal. Because of its heat resistance, along with its conductivity, industrial gold plating is regularly used for electronics. Because of this superior heat resistance, gold is used for plating electronics in high-temperature environments.

Industrial Gold Plating Services from Silvex Inc.

Silvex Inc. can provide industrial gold plating services that conform to most of the specifications requested by our customers. For example, we can provide 99.7 percent pure gold coatings for titanium, stainless and other steels, kovar, invar, copper, castings, brass, and aluminum to a length of two feet (60.96 cm). Contact the experts at Silvex today for more information on our gold plating services.