Dear Steve:

I am wondering what the purpose of your questions are?
  
If you are looking for a way to measure the colloidal silver you are making,
then I have a suggestion.  Very likely you would be making ionic silver with
a very small percentage of particles.  In that case the $60 Hanna PWT, pure
water tester, works extremely well for testing ionic silver.  In the case of
my nano silver generator the calibration of the PWT in uS is exactly the
same as PPM, 15 uS is 15 PPM.  I think it is a fortuitous accident that the
readings agree.

So far as I know there is no easy way to test particles.  Very few people
are able to make particles so there is no need to test that for the average
home made colloidal silver.

Frank Key tested my silver with his fancy $300,000 machine.  You had asked
about calibration.  I watched the testing and asked a few questions.  It
seems that you feed (1) pure distilled water, then (2) a certified
calibration solution and then (3) the silver solution to be tested.  The
system automatically does this sequence three times and averages the
results.  It looked like a plasma source burned the solution and then the
spectrometer measured the peak amplitude vs. frequency.

See the test reports done by Frank Key on my generator
 http://meissnerresearch.com/products/silver-generator .

Jim Meissner   

-----Original Message-----
From: Norton, Steve [mailto:stephen.nor...@ngc.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 7:08 PM
To: silver-list@eskimo.com
Subject: RE: CS>Measuring CS with a spectrophotometer or colorimeter

Thanks Marshall, 
The pictures and plots are very informative. I believe you are right
about trying to measure ppm without digesting the silver won't work.
Your explanation has helped tremendously in understanding the theory and
operation of colorimeters and  spectrophotometers.
 - Steve N

-----Original Message-----
From: Marshall Dudley [mailto:mdud...@king-cart.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 2:17 PM
To: silver-list@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: CS>Measuring CS with a spectrophotometer or colorimeter

Norton, Steve wrote:
>  
>
> Re.: "picking the right frequency,"
>
> I'm glad you brought that up. If one was to consider calibrating a 
> spectrophotometer to use for measuring ppm as well as particle size 
> distribution, there is the problem that light absorption by a sample 
> of CS at a specific wavelength could vary from lot to lot based on the

> particle size distribution of the sample. Should one make the ppm 
> measurement at the point of maximum absorption, at some intermediate 
> "average" point or would one need to make measurements over the 
> distribution and average the results.
> I assume that the colorimeter avoids this problem because by digesting

> the silver, you convert all the silver to the same "particle size". Do

> you know what wavelength your colorimeter uses when making the 
> measurement for silver?
> Thanks,
>      Steve N
>
>
>   
If you run it on plain old EIS, then you can get a curve which will give
you some idea of the particle sizes.  For ppm measurement, you first
digest the silver. Thus you have no particles at all, it is 100% silver
salts. I use nitric acid, and thus it is silver nitrate.  Then chemicals
are added that give it a very strong color, if I remember right it turns
violet.  The wavelength that is then used is for the violet color that
the chemical changes the silver to.  I doubt you could come up with a
good way to get ppm from a curve of the undigested and treated EIS,
absorption changes so much depending on size and shape of the particles.
To see some typical curves of different ppm and particle size of EIS see
the following:

http://silver-lightning.com/hach/oral.GIF
http://silver-lightning.com/hach/oral2.GIF
http://silver-lightning.com/hach/oral3.GIF
http://silver-lightning.com/hach/topical.GIF

These are in ever increasing particle size.  The leftmost peak is the
absorption of the silver ion, that is ionic silver. All other peaks
correspond to particles, with larger being more to the right generally.

HIf you look at http://silver-lightning.com/hach/agno3.GIF that is the
absorption of silver nitrate. The reason that  this one appears so much
wider than the others is that I expanded the X axis to show more detail
since there was no absorption at the longer wavelengths (that is all the
absorption was in the uv range.

You can see the changes in the color of CS as particle size increases
here: http://silver-lightning.com/cs-color.jpg and the actual absorption
curves vs particl size here http://silver-lightning.com/cs-curves.jpg

Marshall

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marshall Dudley [mailto:mdud...@king-cart.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:29 AM
> To: silver-list@eskimo.com
> Subject: Re: CS>Measuring CS with a spectrophotometer or colorimeter
>
> Norton, Steve wrote:
>   
>> Thanks Marshall,
>> That helps. The info online relative to colorimeters does mention 
>> digesting substances but I was unclear on how that might apply to 
>> silver measurement. There are old manual, analog meter, Hach 
>> colorimeters available for a low cost on eBay. Any reason they would 
>> not work? One could replace the analog meter with a precision 
>> resistor
>>     
>
>   
>> and a digital multimeter and probably gain some accuracy for a very 
>> low additional cost.
>>   
>>     
> They should work, if you have the proper reagents.  Mine is digital 
> and computer controlled, so it does all the work itself as far as 
> calibration, picking the right frequency, and figuring out the 
> concentration of silver.
>   
>> The spectrophotometers allow you to vary the wavelength of the light 
>> used. Does varying the light wavelengths and measuring the light 
>> absorbtion at each wavelength provide particle size distribution 
>> information? At least a rough estimation? Again, there are old 
>> manual,
>>     
>
>   
>> analog meter, spectrophotometers available for a low cost on eBay and

>> one could make the DMM modification.
>>   
>>     
> Yes, it is quit good for assisting in particle size distribution.  The

> unit I have prints out the curve of amplitude of absorption vs 
> wavelength from the infrared through the uv range.
>
> Marshall
>   
>> Thanks for your help,
>>            Steve N
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Marshall Dudley [mailto:mdud...@king-cart.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 7:01 AM
>> To: silver-list@eskimo.com
>> Subject: Re: CS>Measuring CS with a spectrophotometer or colorimeter 
>> -
>>     
>
>   
>> need help
>>
>> Norton, Steve wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> >From what I can gather, to measure ppm with a  spectrophotometer 
>>> >you
>>> must measure a solution with a known ppm first. You then measure the

>>> unknown solution and then using a formula you can calculate the ppm 
>>> of
>>>     
>>>       
>>   
>>     
>>> the unknown solution. If you have multiple known solutions of CS of 
>>> different ppms, you can plot a conversion chart that gives more 
>>> accuracy than the formula. Is that correct?
>>> Does the colorimeter use the same methodology?
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> That Hach unit I have is calibrated, so you do not use a solution 
>> with
>>     
>
>   
>> a known ppm. You put in a control, which is the same distilled water 
>> that the CS was made from, and let it run the baseline, then put in 
>> the one with CS in it, and it displays the ppm directly.  However all

>> the silver must be digested first, using nitric acid.
>>
>> Marshall
>>   
>>     
>>> Thanks,
>>>     Steve N
>>>
>>>       
>
>
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