On 10/09/2014 09:54 AM, Tam Gray wrote:
What exactly is happening to the distilled water in my
jar when the electrodes are applied and the generator is
running which produces colloidal silver?
The electric current passing from one electrode to the other
frees silver atoms from the anode (the more positive
electrode) by and drives them, through the water to the
cathode (the more negative electrode). During this process,
the concentration of silver ions (atoms with a positive
electric charge, because they are missing an electron or
two) build up in the water, toward a maximum possible
concentration, as they migrate toward the cathode, because
of its attractive negative charge. Stirring the water helps
to keep these ions moving around, instead of having them
drift directly toward the cathode.
If the process is continued, long enough, the cathode will
become coated with crystals or fine powder of silver that
has condensed out of the water, as the silver ions contact
the cathode and have their missing electrons replaced. The
anode may also become black with a coating of silver oxide,
because the current will also break some of the water
molecules down into atomic oxygen at the anode, which is
chemically very reactive.
If you are seeing a lot of black coating on the anode and
lots of silver "mud" on the cathode, you are running the
batches way too long and just wasting your anode to grow
silver crystals on the cathode.
The details of exactly what is happening on the atomic
scale, at the surfaces of the anode and cathode are quite
complex, as the atoms are freed from the anode and collected
at the cathode.
The silver atoms in the water exist as ions bound to water
molecules, to form of silver hydroxide.
I do not understand much about how this process produces
colloidal silver (the nanometer sized clusters of silver
atoms, but I suspect this happens as the silver ions collect
at the surface of the cathode, lose their electric charge
and change from ions back to neutral silver atoms. If those
clusters disconnect from contact with the cathode, before
they get large enough to see, then they become suspended
silver colloid. A colloid is a suspension of particles that
are so small, the thermal motion of water molecules is
enough agitation to keep them from falling to the bottom of
the container.
I suspect that raising the temperature of the water changes
the size distribution of the colloidal particles produced,
but this is just a conjecture, at this point.
I am pretty sure the current per electrode area also affects
the size distribution.
--
Regards,
John Popelish
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