Friends, To let you know, several years ago I did try making water filters out of concrete. I used a very dry mix, like that of a concrete block, and even less water, in hopes there would be some interconnectedness of the pores/ voids/ fissures. However I just wasn't getting the flow. I'm guessing there's something about the concrete bond that prevents the flow. It is apparent, at the very least that it's not possible to fine tune the flow rate (average), as is the case with pottery. For the pottery, using about half, pre-fired particles, and half unfired, normal clay, there's a pulling away of particles during drying and firing, that's caused by shrinkage of the normal clay. That brings about an ideal, and adjustable, permeable medium that's very responsive to alteration of flow rate, per composition. So givine the idiosyncracies of pottery clays, almost any of these can be rendered into a purifier. Maybe some more clever person than I am can make concrete work, but I just don't see it.
As to the two liter flask, in the double boiler, my new plan of action is that next time I'll simply leave the starter out, using the bigger electrodes. The reaction rate may be slowish but with time I may still get viable concentrations. But I'm also proceeding to a back up methodology. Now we're saturating candles with AgNO3. I cannot think of another silver compound that's so easy to make, with such implicit likelihood of small partiucle size. We're mixing this in with the clay materials, then forming purifiers, drying and firng. Firing will lose the nitrate and should leave the metal, with a bond to the pottery. Even using lab made, reagent grade should prove very inexpensive. Making ones own, under proper conditions of course, should make silver nitrate far less expensive, giving a purifier that's still within the reach of the poor. Reid -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. Instructions for unsubscribing may be found at: http://silverlist.org 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>
