Have you taken a look at Tollens reagent? This mixture will coat a surface with silver.
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA5/MAIN/1ORGANIC/ORG12/TRAM12/D/0384525/THUMBS.HTM http://www.finishing.com/114/08.html http://home.school.net.hk/~chemmag/issue3/oli/sm.htm http://download.micron.com/pdf/education/lessonplans/deposition.pdf The basic operation is to mix silver nitrate with with sodium hydroxide. This will produce silver oxide. Since silver oxide has a fairly low solubility in water it will precipitate out. Then if you add ammonia, it will form fulminating silver which dissolves back into solution. The addition of glucose to this will cause the fulminating silver to reduce to silver metal, coating every particle in the pottery with a thin silver coating. According to http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/course_notes/chemistry/chem267l/Pdfs/Exp5_charbohydrates.pdf if the walls of the beaker are not scrupulously clean, then the solution will produce a grey black precipitate in the solution which is of course nano sized silver particles. So, not only will silver likely adhear to the particles of pottery coating them, but they will also form as distinct particles, which would hopefully get trapped in the pottery as well giving a very large surface area of silver to the pottery. Do not allow the fumninating silver solution to dry out without being reduced. Fulminating silver is a contact high explosive like nitroglycerine. However as long as it is kept wet, it is stable. Marshall -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver List archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] OT Archive: http://escribe.com/health/silverofftopiclist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
