I belive that CS is formed by the super saturated solution near the anode, but the growing particles diffuse out of the saturated volume before growing too large. Stirring moves these newly formed particles out of the super saturated volume before they have grown as much as if you are not stirring, thus stirring makes smaller particles.
Also as the concentration of silver increases toward saturation, the particles that have been formed continue to grow, thus making the colloid go from clear to yellow and to other colors if production is continued. I believe this process is very much like that of tempering metal. The super saturaton occuring for particles for a short period of time results in smaller particles (crystals), but if you do it slowly, either by not stirring, or by supersaturating the entire CS, or by cooling slowly, then the crystals will be fewer and much larger. If this theory is correct, then I believe that one can produce small particles by cooling, the trick is to cool rapidly, in that case many small particles should form, and have insufficient time to grow to be big particles. I belive that the reason that my HVAC produces 20% particles, where as most LVDC produces much lower particle content is due to this. My electrodes are 14 guage, and are only about 1/10 inch exposed in the water. The current is quite high, about 100 mA. This creates a supersaturated volume of silver ions near the electrode. The amount of power introduced near the electrode is very high, and this results in high convection currents, as well as quite high temperature of the immediate water. As the ions move away from the electrode, it cools immediately to about 100 F (new water is feed in at 32F). This forces the ions to quickly form small particles, but before they can grow to be large, they have moved into the cooler more diluted volume, and are shorly flushed from the reactor vessel completely. Marshall Frank Key wrote: > It has been observed that the pH of some colloidal silver drops (becomes > acidic) after production. An answer from the web site FAQ is reproduced below: > > "Can ions clump together to form metallic silver particles? " > > In an unsaturated solution, ions are dispersed throughout the solvent by > repulsive force and exist as separate entities. However, in a saturated > solution, ions will precipitate out as large flakes of metallic silver > particles as the solution cools. These flakes are usually flat and can grow to > a very large size, up to 0.100 inches in diameter, and drop to the bottom. > > In a saturated solution, silver ions will recover an electron from an anion as > they precipitate to metallic silver. When a silver ion receives an electron > from an anion during cooling of a saturated solution, the ion becomes a silver > atom. Silver atoms have no ionic charge to produce a repulsive force, so they > are draw together by the van der Waals' force of attraction and aggregate into > particles of metallic silver. The predominate anions in a silver colloidal > solution are carbonate and hydroxide. If the anion providing the electron is a > carbonate, carbonic acid is formed which lowers the pH of the solution during > this process. > > For more on the silver compounds see the tech brief titled "Solubility > Products Involving Silver Compounds" in the Technical Papers section. > > frank key > www.silver-colloids.com > > -- > The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. > > To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: > silver-list-requ...@eskimo.com -or- silver-digest-requ...@eskimo.com > with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. > > To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com > Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html > List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com>
