The chemical compound
All the substances that we know to exist in the universe today, which cannot be broken into simpler substances, can be found on the periodic table of the elements.
The table provides an array of the 118 chemical elements in existence, or rather, all ordinary matter in the universe. Of these, 94 occur naturally on earth, with gold, being one of them. Gold is chemically denominated as Au and is number 79.
Additionally, gold is also the most resistant to acids, compared to any of the other precious metals mentioned below, only dissolving in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, and in alkaline solutions of cyanide.
The physical properties
A noble metal - Gold is one of 8 noble metals on the periodic table. Noble metals are the least chemically reactive, in other words they do not react with oxygen or other elements which will result in them tarnishing or decaying. Of the 8 noble metals, only 4 are commonly used as commodities: silver, platinum, palladium and gold.
Gold is also a precious metal - a unique group of elemental metals with high economic value and rarity. Gold is the rarest of all precious metals. How rare? All the gold ever mined is currently estimated at roughly 190,000 tonnes – only enough to form a gold cube of 21 metres on each side. This would allow it to comfortably fit into an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Gold is incredibly malleable. This means that it is soft and readily bent into all shapes. Modern jewellers have added other metals to gold, with the intention of making it harder and less prone to scratching. We will touch more on the concept of alloys in another blog post, but unless the design is extremely delicate, mixing base metals with gold is unnecessary and bastardises its wonderful, inherent properties, we are touching on today.
Gold is hypoallergenic as well as antimicrobial. This means that your gold jewellery will not cause any discomfort or allergic reaction and will be gentle, as well as clean, on the skin, preventing discomfort and infection.
The above properties have made gold one of the oldest and most sought after metals. It is no wonder then that gold, is the oldest, time-tested store of value.
Nebu jewelry capsulates all the marvellous properties above, namely that it is noble, it is the most rare of the precious metals, it's malleable, it is a store of value and is hypoallergenic and antimicrobial.