Gold and White Gold

Gold and white gold are expensive materials used for jewellery making. People choose gold or white gold depending on their tastes. Except few differences, both are good starting materials for jewelleries.

Gold

Gold is a transition metal with the chemical symbol Au. Au is from the Latin word ‘aurum’ which means ‘shining dawn’. Gold is in the group 11 of the periodic table, and its atomic number is 79. Its electron configuration is [Xe] 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6s¹. Gold is a shiny metal with a metallic yellow colour. Further, it is a malleable and ductile metal.

Gold is widely used to make jewellery and statues. It is considered as a very precious metal. One of the important properties of gold in its less reactivity. Gold doesn’t react with moisture and oxygen in the air. Therefore, no matter how long it is exposed to air, gold oxide layer won’t be forming and, therefore, its colour doesn’t fade or change. Since gold doesn’t react with other chemicals easily, it occurs as the free element in the nature. Gold particles are found embedded in rocks. Johannesburg, South Africa has one of the largest gold deposits. Other than that Russia, United States, Australia and Peru are major gold producers in the world.

Gold creates alloy with other metals easily. Gold has +1 and +3 oxidation states commonly. Gold ions in a solution can be easily reduced to the 0 oxidation state, so gold can be precipitated out. ¹⁹⁷Au is the only stable isotope of gold. Among the applications of gold, it has been in use for centuries. It was considered precious from the history and was being used as a currency. When making jewellery, pure gold (24k) is not used. Usually it is alloyed with some other metals and 22k, 18k, 9k etc. gold are used for jewellery making process.

White Gold

White gold is an alloy made by mixing gold with some other white metal. This alloying metal could be silver, palladium or manganese. Depending on the alloying metal and the proportions used, properties of white gold can vary. For instance, when palladium is mixed with gold, the result white gold will be soft and pliable. When nickel and gold is mixed, it would be hard and strong.

White gold’s purity is given in karats. For example, white gold can be 18kt, 14kt, 9kt, etc. The colour of white gold we see is not the actual colour of white gold. The whitish colour comes from rhodium plating and normally the colour of white gold is a light grey colour. White gold is mainly used for jewellery making. The alloys used for this are gold,palladium,silver and gold, nickel,copper, and zinc. However, some people are allergic to nickel so it is no longer used widely in white gold.

Gold vs White Gold

• White gold is an alloy and gold is a pure chemical element.

• Gold has a yellow colour whereas white gold has a whitish colour.

• In white gold, other elements are mixed, so it can react with moisture and air, but gold is comparatively less reactive.