All That Glitters Is Sometimes Silver

Posted in The World Of Metal on 7th May 2011

William Rowland are a leading supplier of Silver.

All that glitters is not always gold - there's silver to consider as well! Silver has been used for thousands of years to make jewellery and ornaments, and as the basis for many monetary systems, and whilst the jewellery industry today accounts for a great part of the final end user market, the metal has applications way beyond that, in the electrical sector for example.

Silver has excellent electrical conductivity properties - better even than copper - however it's higher cost prevents it being used in widespread electrical applications, such as domestic wiring. It's electrical use is, however, more common than you would perhaps think - Silver Membrane Switches, which do not require a great deal of pressure to activate, are used in buttons for many everyday items such as TVs, Computer Keyboards, Microwaves and Telephones, whilst the metal also forms a part of many printed circuit boards contained within mobile phones and computer drives.

Silver's electrical properties are also exploited for the creation of silver-based inks which produce RFID tags (Radio Frequency Identification), essentially technology which allows data exchange between a "reader" unit and the object tagged with the RFID. The technology is used in many ways, for example the introduction of RFID chips into passenger baggage labels has greatly reduced the numbers of lost and missing items at airports, whilst the new "chipped" UK passports and public transport systems such as the Oystercard in London also rely on Silver RFID equipment.

Silver also has a market in the solder industry, where alloys of Silver and other metals such as copper, lead and tin can be created for use in a variety of applications. Silver's characteristics of being very hard and having a high melting point mean that solder alloys containing the metal are strong and suitable for use in high temperature applications. The Silver also provides a free-flowing characteristic to the solder and there are several "grades" of Silver Solder available, each of which have differing flow rates depending on the amount of Silver present.

So next time you see something glistening out of the corner of your eye, take a closer look - it's probably silver!

William Rowland Ltd are silver suppliers, and if you would like to find out how we can meet your requirements, please contact us using the Quick Enquiry Form on the right-hand side of this website.

Tags: High Purity Metals News, Silver News