Fred Walter copied some comments by Thomas Miller on March 23, in which Mr.
Miller discounted "golden" colloidal silver, reasoning that since silver
"is" white and that known toxic compounds of silver are yellow, that
"golden" solutions are likely contaminated with dangerous impurities.
I am not by any means an expert in colloidal silver, its manufacture, or
the
field of alternative medicine in general. However, I do have a degree in
chemistry and would like to point out some technical issues here.
Elements do have distinctive chemical properties, but color is not one of
them. Color not only depends on the element but its physical form. The
most flagrant example would be carbon: in the form of diamond it is
transparent, in the form of graphite it is shiny and opaque silver-black,
in the form of soot it is pure black and nonreflective. Silver in fine
suspension may have a color unrelated to that of the bulk metal because of
the way it scatters light. The sky is blue not because the gases in the
air are blue, but because they scatter blue-range light more efficiently
than the other colors.
Yellow color of a colloid is not necessarily the sign of impurities. Where
does Mr. Miller believe he is getting exotic ions such as picrate and
hyponitrate (or nitrite, which is separately mentioned but no different)
or even bromide and iodide, from a starting material of pure silver and
distilled water?
Following is the original posting from Mr. Miller:
ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COLLOIDAL SILVER
There are no shortage of "experts" claiming all sorts of things about
colloidal silver... saddly, most of it is simple hype aimed at getting
you to buy their product rather than someone else's. This can make it
very confusing to someone trying to so rt through all the claims and
counter- claims. Here's some of the most commonly asked questions:
IS "GOLDEN" COLLOIDAL SILVER BETTER?
There is no such thing as "golden" colloidal silver. Silver is white.
Lange's Handbook of Chemistry lists silver as "...the whitest of metals.
Pure silver particles suspended in water should have a very slight
white- colored fog to it. If you make colloidal silver with a very low
current, it will take a long time... long enough for silver compounds
to be formed due to electrolysis. Even distilled water contains trace
elements, and Merck's Handbook describes many silver compounds as
"pale
yellow." They include silver bromide, silver carbonate, silver chlorite,
silver hyponitrate, silver iodide, silver nitrite, silver phosphate and
silver picrate. Some of these compounds are described as toxic. The
proper way to make colloidal silver is to use enough current to cause
tiny silver particles (each 12 to 15 atoms) to be "knocked" off of the
electrodes, making the desired concentration in 5 to 7 minutes. This is
a MECHANICAL process. You want to do it quickly enough so that
compounds do not have time to form. If the process takes 20 to 45
minutes, the chemical process overshadows the mechanical effect, and you
get silver compounds. WHAT compounds depend on the content of the
original water. Some silver compounds are quite toxic. Merck's lists
silver nitrate as highly poisonous.
(other unrelated comments about colloidal silver follow in original posting)
