Gold is a soft metal and is usually alloyed to give it more strength. It is a good conductor of heat and electricity, and is unaffected by air and most reagents. It is used in coinage and is a standard for monetary systems. It is also extensively used for jewelry, dental work, and for plating. It is used for coating certain space satellites, as it is a good reflector of infrared and is inert. One area that has seen significant growth is the use of gold in electronics, particularly within telecommunications, information technology and safety critical applications. Similarly, within computers there are usually gold-plated edge connectors. Gold bonding wires are used extensively within semiconductor packages, gold thick film inks are applied in the fabrication of hybrid circuits and gold's excellent solder wetting properties are used to form a very thin protective layer on copper laminate printed circuit boards Gold is an indispensable element for nanoscale electronic components because of its resistance to oxidation and its mechanical robustness. There are a number of direct applications of gold in medical devices. New development are based on its use as a catalyst in chemical processing, pollution control and fuel cell applications. Gold is available as metal and compounds with purities from 99% to 99.9999% (ACS grade to ultra-high purity); metals in the form of foil, sputtering target, and rod, and compounds as submicron and nanopowder.

Gold facts, including appearance, CAS #, and molecular formula and safety data, research and properties are

(click on an element)

Oxides are available in forms including powders and dense pellets for such uses as optical coating and thin film applications. Oxides tend to be insoluble. Fluorides are another insoluble form for uses in which oxygen is undesirable such as metallurgy, chemical and physical vapor deposition and in some optical coatings. Gold is available in soluble forms including chlorides, nitrates and acetates. These compounds are also manufactured as solutions at specified stoichiometries.

All elemental metals, compounds and solutions may be synthesized in ultra high purity (e.g. 99.999%) for laboratory standards, advanced electronic, metallurgy and optical materials and other high technology advantages. Information is provided for stable (non-radioactive) isotopes. Organo-Metallic Gold compounds are soluble in organic or non-aqueous solvents. See Analytical Services for information on available certified chemical and physical analysis techniques including MS-ICP, X-Ray Diffraction, PSD and Surface Area (BET) analysis.

Gold was first discovered by Early Man c.a. 3000 B.C.

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Abundance. The following table shows the abundance of gold and each of its naturally occurring isotopes on Earth along with the atomic mass for each isotope.