Gold Plating Chemicals Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Demand from the electronics industry: With the rise in consumer electronics, including smartphones and wearables, good-quality gold plating chemicals will be needed to maintain better connectivity and performance. The World Gold Council estimates that 80% of the gold used in technology solutions goes into the electronics sector. This acts as a major growth factor for the gold plating chemicals market. The arrival of IoT devices is also proving to be one of the factors for this surge.

• Sustainable innovations: Innovations promoting sustainability are gaining prominence in the market. For example, in November 2023, ACS Publication research discussed gold recovery through photocatalysis from wastewater generated at the end of the gold-plating process using cyanide-based solutions. This has introduced the use of nanocomposites of TiO2/WO3 for gold recovery as an economic and eco-friendly way of recovering gold, thus improving sustainable measures in industries and contributing to growing demand.

• Expanding applications of gold plating chemicals into the automotive sector: Gold plating gaining traction in electric vehicles to improve their efficiency and reliability. For example, in 2021, Umicore announced a USD 1.66 billion investment to expand its production capacity for cathode materials. This is attributed to the overall shift in the transportation means toward sustainable solutions.

Challenges

• Stringent environmental regulations: Severe environmental regulations on the use of hazardous chemicals pose a hindrance to the gold plating chemicals market growth. In March 2023, experts were found inventing a means of removing cyanide particles from gold cyanide residues, showing the plight of the industry about conformation with regulations. However, such innovations increase operational costs and require continuous innovation.

• Recovery costs and efficiency: Conventional measures for recovering gold are costly and require additional tools for ion exchange and electrolysis. While the new photocatalytic method surfacing has great potential, it pointed out that developing effective and efficient methodologies for gold recovery is still lacking. The industrial sector has only begun to embark on the process of developing through greener ways.