What Is Silver Used For?

What Is Silver Used For? | Guide to Silver’s Industrial, Medical, and Investment Uses

When most people think of silver, they probably imagine jewelry and coins. In reality, an estimated 58% of the world’s silver demand comes from factories. Global silver demand eclipsed 1.13 billion ounces in 2025, with around 657.4 million ounces going toward manufactured goods. Silver ends up in a range of different products, including solar panels, brazing alloys, wound dressings, mirrors, and much more.

Silver is among the world’s most popular investment assets, but it’s also one of the most useful metals on the planet. In fact, the biggest price driver for silver may be industrial – not investment. Most silver (58% in 2025) is used in industrial fabrication.

Silver’s unique properties, including high reflectivity, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity, make it an essential material in the fabrication of electronics like circuit boards, switches, and solar panels, along with a range of products in other industries.

Understanding what silver is used for can give investors a better idea of the silver industry’s demand trajectory.

On this page, learn more about what silver is used for, including silver’s biggest uses, leading demand drivers, historical trends, and more.

What Makes Silver So Useful?

Silver is the strongest electrical conductor among all elements, and it is also the best thermal conductor of any metal. These qualities make silver an asset in the production of various electronics, including circuit boards, switches, smartphones, and more.

The metal is also highly reflective, which makes it useful in the production of some mirrors, solar panels, and telescopes. Silver’s natural antimicrobial quality means that it’s also essential for a range of medical devices and medicines.

Below, we’ll take a closer look at silver’s unique qualities that make it so useful.

Excellent Thermal and Electrical Conductivity

Silver is the best electrical conductor of any element, and it’s also the best thermal conductor among all metals. Both of these qualities make silver incredibly useful for electronics, electrical wiring, and other items that require either heat or electricity to be effectively transferred.

Compared to copper, another efficient electrical conductor, silver is approximately 6% better at conducting electricity. This makes silver the best conductor of electricity on the planet, which explains the massive annual demand for silver in the electronics industry.

Its thermal conductivity also beats every other metal. Silver conducts heat at a rate of 429 W/(m*K), beating copper’s 398, gold’s 315, and aluminum’s 237. Silver’s thermal conductivity is important because the metal can quickly move heat away from sensitive electronic components, making it an essential component in many modern electronics.

Most Reflective Metal in the Visible Spectrum

Silver is also among the most reflective materials on the planet. On average, silver mirrors average more than 98% reflectivity on the visible spectrum, compared to just 90% for aluminum.

Because of its reflectivity, silver is used in advanced mirrors, telescopes, and other items that require a high degree of light reflection.

Naturally Antimicrobial

Silver is highly antimicrobial. Because the ions in silver function to disrupt the cell membranes of bacteria, silver is often used in medical treatments to destroy bacteria.

Today, silver is primarily used to treat burns, and silver coatings are used in catheters and many wound dressings due to the metal’s natural antimicrobial properties.

Here’s Why Silver Doesn’t Always Make Sense in Industry

While silver holds a distinct advantage where electrical and thermal conductivity, reflectivity, and antimicrobial properties are concerned, the metal is not always used in products that need these qualities. The reason why involves both the high cost of silver and the minimal edge it holds compared to other metals.

Take electrical conductivity as an example. Silver is only about 6% more effective at conducting electricity compared to copper. However, silver is over 100 times more expensive than copper per kilogram. This is why copper is more commonly used as a conductor than silver.

So while silver is a superior thermal and electric conductor to other metals, it’s not always the preferred material used – and this matters when it comes to silver’s biggest demand drivers annually.

How Much Silver Is Used Each Year, and Where Does It Go?

In 2025, total demand for silver was approximately 1,130.6 million troy ounces, or around 35,200 metric tons. The total supply of usable silver in 2025 was 1,090.4 million troy ounces, or approximately 33,900 metric tons. This means that demand for silver outpaced supply last year by around 40.3 million troy ounces. That’s the silver deficit.

The silver industry has been at a deficit for five years, beginning in 2020, and some analysts project that the deficit could continue into 2026.

Silver Demand by Sector

Silver is used in a range of different industries, and the spot price of silver is often driven by demand across these sectors, so it’s important for investors to understand which industries actually drive demand for the precious metal.

Let’s take a look at silver demand by sector, as of 2025.

Industrial use accounts for approximately 58% of annual demand for silver.

Out of the 1,130.6 million troy ounces of silver used globally in 2025, an estimated 657.4 million ounces went into the industrial fabrication sector.

Source: World Silver Survey 2026, Metals Focus for The Silver Institute (April 2026). Figures are millions of troy ounces.

The largest demand driver for silver in 2025 was in the electrical and electronics sector, even if we exclude solar energy demand. Overall, industrial applications accounted for 58% of total silver demand last year, helping to push silver to its fifth consecutive supply deficit.

Silver in Electronics and Electrical Applications

How Much Silver Does a Smartphone Contain?

Silver is used in cellphones because of its excellent electrical and thermal conductivity. Because silver is such a good electrical conductor, it can help quickly transmit electronic signals inside of a phone’s hardware.

The average cellphone contains about 0.09 grams (90 mg) of extractable silver. Every 100,000 phones that are recycled yield around 9 kilograms of silver, 2 kilograms of gold, 250 grams of palladium, and 900 kilograms of copper.

Silver in Circuit Boards, Switches, and Contacts

The electronics industry accounts for the most silver used annually across all industries, and much of the silver used in this sector goes to circuit boards, switches, and contacts.

Switches and relays frequently use silver because of its minimal contact resistance and its durability in the face of repeated arcing. Higher-power signal contacts use silver, while low-signal contacts tend to use gold plating, since silver tarnishes over time and low-power signals are not sufficient to break through the tarnishing film.

Silver in 5G Infrastructure and Data Centers

Silver is playing an increasingly vital role in the construction of data centers, particularly in the power sources and electronics used to produce the high amounts of computing power necessary for the growing artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

Research is still being conducted to determine how much silver is used in the average 5G infrastructure project or data center, but analysts say that this sector is poised to become one of the fastest-growing demand drivers for silver in the coming decades.

Silver in Solar Panels

How Much Silver Is in a Solar Panel?

The average 450 W solar panel uses around 4.6 grams of silver. This might not seem like a lot, but the large size of the solar panel industry makes solar power a major demand driver for silver annually.

Demand in the solar panel industry overall grew considerably from 2020 until 2024, more than doubling from 82.8 million troy ounces in 2020 to 197.5 million troy ounces in 2024, an all-time high. 2025 saw a retraction for the first time since 2021, falling to 186.6 million troy ounces total as silver prices climbed. 

Silver in Electric Vehicles and Cars

How Much Silver Does a Car Use?

A traditional gas-powered vehicle uses around 15-25 grams of silver. Full hybrid cars use more silver, totaling around 18-34 grams. Battery-powered electric cars use the most silver, clocking in at approximately 25-50 grams each on average.

More than 60 million troy ounces of silver go to the automotive industry annually, and some analysts expect this number to climb in the next decade. Silver is used throughout vehicles, primarily in electrical switches, contacts, relays, and other electronic parts in a car. In other words, there’s no single “silver part” in a car – the silver is all over.

Contrary to popular belief, silver is not found in a vehicle’s catalytic converter. Platinum-group metals (platinum, palladium, and rhodium) are the metals used in catalytic converters.

EVs Use Nearly Twice as Much Silver as a Gas-Powered Car – But Why?

The main reason electric vehicles use more silver than gas-powered cars is that they include more electronic components, something that silver thrives at due to its exceptional electrical and thermal conductivity. High-voltage contactors, power electronics, and a number of sensing and switching boards demand the use of an excellent conductor like silver, and an electric vehicle is the precise kind of technology where a small edge in conductivity can make a large difference.

Analysts in the silver industry believe that growth in the EV sector will make electric vehicles an even larger demand driver for silver in coming years.

Silver in the Medical Industry

Silver is used in the medical industry for its natural antimicrobial properties. Silver’s ions are excellent at disrupting bacterial cell membranes and interfering with their DNA replication processes, the very thing that makes bacterial infections grow and expand.

Today, silver is usually used in the medical industry on silver-coated devices, such as catheters, endotracheal tubes, wound dressings, and hospital surface coatings, and on antimicrobial textiles like surgical gowns, hospital curtains, and athletic wear.

Certain medical compounds also use silver. These include:

• Silver sulfadiazine
• Silver chloride
• Silver sulfate
• Nano-silver

Some people claim that silver can be used as a medical treatment when taken by mouth, but this is not true. In fact, ingesting colloidal silver is both ineffective and potentially unsafe, according to the FDA. Silver is not any kind of essential mineral, and the ingestion of silver by itself is not known to treat bacterial infections.

Silver’s Other Industrial Uses

Brazing Alloys and Solders

Brazing is a process used to join two different metals together. The filler placed between the metals needs to have a lower melting point than either of the two joined metals so that neither of these metals melt. Brazing is commonly used in air conditioners and refrigerators, where silver is applied as a common filler to braze joints together.

Using silver-brazed joints, refrigerators and air conditioners can stay leak-free for decades, despite continuous pressure and vibration. While total industrial demand for silver pulled back in 2025, this industrial use increased to 50.5 million ounces.

Mirrors, Glass, and Optics

Silver’s reflectivity within the visible spectrum is the highest among all metals. A mirror using silver reflects around 98% across the 450-800 nm range, which is 8 percentage points higher than aluminum’s reflectivity at the same range. This advantage only holds until we reach the violet range (below 450 nm), at which point aluminum is usually preferable.

Catalysts and Chemical Production

The production of ethylene oxide accounts for almost 10 million troy ounces of silver used annually. Silver is used as a catalyst in a range of different chemical processes. Remarkably, this is also one of the only major industrial uses of silver where the silver is not consumed by the product. Instead, silver is almost always recovered after use when applied in chemical reactions and as a catalyst.

Ethylene oxide is used in the production of polyester textiles, and an estimated 25% of ethylene oxide produced annually goes to the automotive industry in antifreeze.

If you’re wearing a polyester shirt or put antifreeze in your engine, you’re looking at products that used silver as a catalyst in order to exist. Remember, though, silver is recovered after being used in most chemical processes as a catalyst. In other words, there’s not actually silver in your t-shirt!

Silver in Jewelry and Silverware

Together, jewelry and silverware account for more than 1/5th of total annual demand for silver. Silver jewelry and silverware are retreating as demand drivers, though, with jewelry falling 8% in 2025 and silverware sliding 21% to set a four-year low.

Silverware made with actual silver used to be far more popular. But given the cost of silver, these products are typically sold today as luxuries and collector’s pieces. While silver jewelry remains popular, other metals can replace silver at a much lower cost, and silver is often reserved for smaller collectible pieces.

Notably, rising silver prices seem to have largely redirected demand rather than destroy it. While jewelry and silverware as a cohort fell 8% and 21%, respectively, physical investment in coins and bars rose by 14%.

Surprising Uses of Silver

One of the most surprising uses of silver is in Olympic medals. Both gold and silver Olympic medals are required to be made with 92.5% silver, with gold medals containing approximately 6 grams of gold as a coating. The last time solid gold was used to make an Olympic medal was in 1912, as gold prices had become a prohibitive factor at that point in Olympic history.

Another surprising use of silver is in nuclear reactors. Control rods in nuclear reactors typically utilize a silver-indium-cadmium alloy, which contains around 80% silver.

Keep reading

Are Olympic Medals Real Gold?

Gold medals haven’t been solid gold since 1912. Modern gold Olympic medals are made with 92.5% silver and around 6g of gold plating.

Read the full guide →

Silver as an Investment and Money

Silver Bullion Coins and Bars

Silver bullion is perhaps the most commonly recognized use of silver, especially among investors. Silver is used to produce highly pure silver coins, bars, and rounds. The silver investment market has grown considerably over the past several decades. In 2025, total demand for silver in the bullion industry climbed to 217.7 million ounces, with India specifically seeing a regional jump of 33%.

In the United States, retail investment in silver has fallen for three consecutive years, as of 2025.

Buying Physical Silver Coins and Bars

Hero Bullion is an online precious metals dealer offering a range of silver products for investors. On our site, you can take advantage of competitive pricing, fast shipping, free shipping on qualifying orders, and more when you buy silver coins, bars, and rounds online!

How Does Industrial Demand Impact Investable Supply?

Almost all of the gold ever mined by humanity still exists, but the same cannot be said for silver. Around 657.4 million ounces of silver went to industry in 2025, and much of it was consumed. Solar cells, electronics, and brazing use silver in such small quantities that it is seldom economically feasible to recover.

The silver market has also operated at a strict deficit for five straight years since 2021.

What does this mean for silver prices? It’s difficult to say, and we’re not in the business of price prediction. Some investors believe that the ongoing silver supply deficit and growing demand from industry will drive prices higher, but the silver market remains very speculative.

Frequently Asked Questions About How Silver is Used

What is Silver Used For the Most?

Silver’s largest use is in industrial applications. Industrial fabrication used approximately 657.4 million troy ounces of silver in 2025, which is 58% of the total 1.13 billion ounces used in total. Within this category, electrical and electronics dominated with an estimated demand of 449.5 million ounces.

What Percentage of Silver Demand is Industrial?

As of 2025, 58.1% of the world’s total silver demand was industrial.

How Much Silver Is in a Solar Panel?

The typical 450-watt solar panel module used approximately 4.6 grams of silver in 2025, although precise estimates vary based on model and the size of the module. Rising silver prices have been pulling the average amount of silver used per unit lower as manufacturers have transitioned to thinner silver paste to offset costs. 

How Much Silver Is in a Cell Phone?

Your cell phone doesn’t contain very much silver. The average cell phone contains around 0.09 grams of silver, all of which is spread throughout circuit board traces, contacts, and other miniscule electrical components.

How Much Silver Is in a Car?

The amount of silver in a car depends on the type of vehicle. Gas-powered vehicles use around 15-25 grams of silver. Full hybrid vehicles typically contain between 18 and 34 grams, and battery electric vehicles use 25-50 grams. These are 2025 estimates published by the Silver Institute.

Is Silver or Gold More Industrially Useful?

Silver is substantially more industrially useful than gold. Industrial demand accounted for an estimated 6% of total gold demand in 2025, compared to 58% for silver. Because of silver’s excellent conductivity, antimicrobial properties, and reflectivity, the metal is more useful than gold for most industrial sectors. Additionally, silver is far more economically feasible than gold to use in industry.

Why is Silver Used in Electronics?

Silver is used in electronics primarily because of its electrical and thermal conductivity. Silver loses very little heat and can transfer energy quickly, making it ideal for use in circuit boards, switches, connectors, and other small electronic components.

Is Silver Antibacterial?

Yes, silver is antibacterial in the sense that its ions can disrupt the cell membranes of bacteria and stifle their DNA replication process. This is why we often see silver used in burn care, as wound dressings, and as coating for medical devices like catheters. However, ingesting silver is not considered a safe and effective way to treat infection. The FDA has repeatedly warned consumers that ingesting colloidal silver is neither safe nor effective at treating medical conditions.

Do Photographers Use Silver?

Photographers still use silver today, but it is far less common than it used to be. Silver demand in the photography industry declined from 210 million ounces in 2001 to just 24.2 million ounces in 2025, largely because digital memory cards replaced traditional film. Silver is still used in medical X-ray film, which now accounts for much of the metal’s demand in the photographic sector.

Does Silver Get Used Up, or Is It Recycled?

Most of the world’s silver is actually used up, rather than recycled. Silver’s main uses in electronics, solar cells, and brazing involve such small quantities of the precious metal that recycling is often economically infeasible. Gold is a different story; almost all gold ever mined by humanity still exists, rather than being destroyed or consumed.

Why Is There a Silver Deficit?

There has been an ongoing silver deficit since 2021. The silver deficit refers to the difference between the total amount of silver mined or recycled and demand for silver. Because demand for silver has outstripped supply over the past half-decade, the industry has been in an ongoing deficit.

Will Solar Keep Driving Silver Demand?

Contrary to popular belief, solar demand for silver is actually on the decline. Forecasters say that demand for silver in the solar energy market is expected to decline in 2026. Rising silver costs and changing technology in the industry have caused manufacturers to reduce the amount of silver used in solar modules.

How is AI Driving Demand for Silver?

Researchers are still trying to determine how the artificial intelligence sector will impact demand for silver in the coming decades. What we do know so far is that AI data centers use a substantial amount of silver through the circuits, contacts, connectors, switches, relays, and other electrical objects. While researchers know that AI is a major emerging demand driver for silver, it is unclear at this point exactly how the industry will impact the silver market.

Final Thoughts: Here’s What Silver’s Used For

Silver is one of the most useful metals on the planet. In addition to being a popular investment asset, silver is the most efficient electrical conductor on the planet and the best thermal conductor of any metal. Most of the world’s silver (around 58%) goes into industrial fabrication, with the largest share heading to the electrical and electronics sector.

The silver market has been in a deficit for five years, and this trend is expected to continue as new emerging sources of demand, including the artificial intelligence sector, grow.

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• What is Copper Used For?
• Platinum Uses and Core Demand Drivers
• The Top 5 Uses of Gold | What Is Gold Used For?

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