Electron microscope reveals how much titanium is really in the titanium Apple Card

Apple Card completely rethinks everything about the credit card. It represents all the things Apple stands for. Like simplicity, transparency, security, and privacy. You can buy things effortlessly, with just your iPhone. Or, if Apple Pay is not yet supported by the merchant, use the Apple‑designed titanium card anywhere in the world.
Apple Card completely rethinks everything about the credit card. It represents all the things Apple stands for. Like simplicity, transparency, security, and privacy. You can buy things effortlessly, with just your iPhone. Or, if Apple Pay is not yet supported by the merchant, use the Apple‑designed titanium card anywhere in the world.

The titanium Apple Card is laser-etched with the card holder’s name and the Apple logo. A white finish is achieved through a multi-layer coating process that’s added to the titanium base material.

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg:

But how much titanium? To find out, a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter sent his card to a mineralogist, University of California, Berkeley professor Hans-Rudolf Wenk. Professor Wenk used what’s known as a scanning electron microscope, or SEM device, to determine the card’s atomic makeup. He found that the answer is about 90%. The rest of the card is aluminum, according to the analysis.

MacDailyNews Take: Wow, that’s a higher amount of titanium than we would’ve guessed!

Information about how to clean, safely store, and carry your titanium Apple Card here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]

16 Comments

  1. Are people really this Lame, someone spent a chunk of change to determine the composition of the Apple Card? They have nothing better to do… some people really need to get a life..

  2. Actually, he used a SEM/EDS for the analysis. The SEM causes the sample to emit characteristic x-rays, the EDS (Energy Dispersive x-ray Spectrometer) measures the x-rays producing a spectrum identifying the elements in the sample. Anyway, kudos.

    1. Exactly what I was thinking. And EDS (or EDAX back when I was using it) is a surface analysis. I goes a lot deeper than something like Auger, but it is not a bulk analysis.
      Outside of Commercially Pure, most titanium alloys I worked with had at least 10% alloying content. One popular alloy is 6% Aluminum and 4% Vanadium.

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