Colored gold

Colored gold is any gold alloy that has a distinctive color. Pure gold is slightly reddish yellow in color, but colored gold can come in a variety of different colors by alloying it with different elements.

Colored golds can be classified in three groups:

  • Alloys with silver and copper in various proportions, producing white, yellow, green and red golds. These are typically malleable alloys.
  • Intermetallic compounds, producing blue and purple golds, as well as other colors. These are typically brittle, but can be used as gems and inlays.
  • Surface treatments, such as oxide layers.

Pure 100% (in practice, 99.9% or better) gold is 24 karat by definition, so all colored golds are less pure than this, commonly 18K (75%), 14K (58.3%), 10K (41.7%), or 9K (37.5%).

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.