Colloidal Silver

Colloidal Silver

is simply silver ions(single atom of silver minus an electron) and microscopic silver particles(colloids– a small group of silver atoms) produced by electrolysis and suspended in purified water. Ionic component measured at 25 PPM, each batch takes 10 hours.

Note: – previously we used to make our colloidal silver over 3 hours which gave us a 18 ppm (ionic component) very clear product. We have changed this to a 12-hour process which gives us a 28 ppm (ionic component). This is about the limit because what begins to happen at this stage is that the ionic i.e. single atom silver particles minus an electron start coalescing together (you will start to see clumps of silver at the bottom of the bottle if left for periods of time) and this also gives a slightly greyer coloured product. (Maybe why some companies use opaque coloured bottles to sell their product in, don’t know for sure but makes me wonder). Also to note I’ve noticed that the 18 ppm drops back to about 12 ppm over a few months and the 28 ppm drops back to about 18 ppm this happens because the silver ions come in contact with each other and coalesce together and drop to the bottom.

We’ve included an optional dropper or Pipette, the reason being is that we have found that dropping the colloidal silver into your ear seems very effective against all sorts of conditions that relate to the ear, nose and throat, it’s as if it is very easy for the body to absorb the colloidal silver and get it to the local area of infection. You just need to lie down and allow it to do its thing, I do it when I go to bed and then if I turn over I have a tissue handy to collect the excess drops.

Modern day Colloidal Silver is an electrolyte of pure water, silver ions & microscopic particles (colloids). Both the ions & particles are beneficial. It can only be described as a mineral supplement. It is not an “approved” pharmaceutical drug (approval has never been sought) so it is illegal to make claims about its therapeutic (medical) effectiveness.
Colloidal silver, is an approved method for purifying water, some people take it as a supplement. Silver is now being used in Band-Aids, toothbrushes etc, mainly for its antibacterial properties.

Our Product – electrolysis method.

Colloidal silver made via the electrolysis method is the term “isolated silver”. Isolated silver refers to silver particles and silver ions, surrounded by pure water molecules: H2O.

Generally speaking, 3 – 10 PPM high quality colloidal silver product is a sufficient concentration for effectiveness in the body. The bottom line is that higher concentration, for use in the body, is NOT desirable.

Quality of Our Product- the quality of colloidal silver is that it passes three tests.
Test:-1 Pic.1, it has sufficient silver ions, this can be measured by a conductivity meter & the reading needs to be between 10 & 20 micro Siemens ie this equates to parts per million(ppm) or Milligram(mg)/Litre as you can see by the first picture ours consistently measures over 25(over time this may settle back to 10-12 ppm as the ions join together to form Colloids).
Test:-2 Pic.2, it has a sufficient number of colloidal particles without colouring the water. This is very hard to measure but the simple test is to shine a laser beam through the liquid the normally invisible silver particles become visible as tiny points of light suspended in the water, so this gives you a visual guide to the type of silver colloids present. Small particles are preferable giving a dense ‘matt’ beam as seen in the picture of our product, the presence of larger particles is indicated by a sparkling effect(we estimates our colloid content at 20ppm).
Test:-3 is that it remains clear, you will see some products that say they have 40-50ppm, when we measured one of these products they had a silver ion reading of less than 10, & when viewed with a laser beam there was lots of sparkle, meaning they have tried to put as much silver in as possible, so they could claim the high PPM & in the process the particles have started to join together in larger sizes causing discoloration & also in the process reducing the ionic count.
So we claim (conservatively) that our Colloidal Silver is around 30ppm (85% ionic + 15% colloidal). The ions are about 1/8th of a nanometre diameter, and most of the particles are in the 40 – 140 nm range. It takes billions of silver ions and tiny particles of this size to add up to 15 milligrams of silver per litre.

Some people claim that the best colloidal silver is produced using high AC current machines, this is simply not true over 90% of the positive results and testimonials that you find on the Web was done using low current DC machines. In the past to produce large quantities in a single go you needed the more expensive AC current devices (even then there ionic content was very low) but that was a long time ago DC devices were always used for small quantities, they are now used for large quantities as well. 

Basically AC devices make it quicker (good for the manufacturer, DC devices are much slower eg for us it is 24hrs/1ltr batch, (better for the consumer).

Particles and Ions.

Silver ions are silver atoms that have lost an electron. They are positively charged.

Silver particles or colloids on the other hand are exactly what the name implies – microscopic particles (colloids). They are so small they stay permanently suspended within the water and do not settle to the bottom. It’s important to note that these particles are not actually made ‘by’ the generator (AC or DC), they are created in the water as the ions combine. Current control and Stirring i.e. keeping the water moving slowly, is the key to keeping the particles small. These particles do not raise the conductivity of the water so they cannot be measured with a PPM or EC meter but you can observe them with a laser. 

A note on particle and ion sizes.
A silver ion is a single silver atom that has lost an electron. All silver ions are the same size no matter how they are made. You can’t get a silver component smaller than an ion. An ion is not a particle, but some producers will deliberately confuse the two in order to claim they produce extremely small particles or so-called ‘micro-particles or nano-particles ‘. Ions and particles are two completely different and beneficial forms of silver and as such need to be considered independently.

Particle surface area

Regarding particle surface area there are so many terms that seem to appear in the colloidal Silver debate. As they actually say in that article 2nd paragraph this is really just another measure of particle size i.e. the smaller the particle the more of them can fit together in a given amount of liquid, hence larger surface area.

In his booklet “Silver Colloids”, Professor Ronald Gibbs wrote ” The size of the particles in the colloidal silver suspensions we use for health purposes is very important. Particle size controls the surface area and therefore the effectiveness of the colloidal silver suspension. “

Anyway here’s some more information on particle sizes regarding our product. 

Nano particles are within the 1 to 100 nanometer size. In a typical batch, 90% of the particles produced will be less than 100 nanometers. (‘Microparticles’ is just a made-up word used by some generator sellers to hype up their product. Basically, all generators produce micro-particles, but not all generators produce nano-particles.).

Don’t confuse particles with ions!

The process that we use produces both particles and silver ions. By design, approximately 85% of the silver in the batch is ionic. A silver ion is a single silver atom that has lost an electron. All silver ions are the same size, just .129 nanometers across, no matter how they are made. You can’t get a silver component smaller than an ion. An ion is not a particle, but some producers will deliberately confuse the two in order to claim they produce extremely small particles. Ions and particles are two completely different and beneficial forms of silver and as such need to be considered independently.

So what happens is that the process produces mainly silver ions which then slowly bump into each other and join together forming colloids. You measure the ionic component using a meter initially ours will measure about 25 ppm(silver ions) but slowly the ionic component will decrease and the colloidal part will increase as the ions merge together to form silver colloids generally stabilising at around 12 to 13 ppm after several months ie ions decrease colloids increase. The test for the particle size of the colloids is very simply measured by shining a laser through the liquid the more even the line i.e. no big individual sparkling pieces, the smaller and denser the colloids, as shown in the pics.

What works best? Ions or particles?

If you search the internet you will soon find very persuasive sites supporting both sides of the ‘Ions Versus Particles’ debate. But the truth is that no-one really knows if it’s the ‘oligodynamic’ properties* of the ions or particles that are the doing the most good in colloidal silver, although most current research seems to favour the ions. It’s also possible that ions and particles both achieve the same thing, but in different areas of the body. There are also some theoretical chemical sequences that suggest that ions convert to particles in the blood stream, or alternatively, some particles release ions. What we can be sure of though, is that what most people have been using and praising for the last 20 years is colloidal silver that contains BOTH ions and particles – because that’s the sort of colloidal silver that has been most readily available. Good quality, commercially bottled colloidal silver is about 85% ionic and 15% particles. Statements by some bottlers that their ‘new’ CS is more effective because it is (supposedly) 100% ionic, or 100% particles, have no such history of everyday usage to support their claims. Quite simply, we don’t need to take sides in the ions versus particles debate because the electrolysis method, done correctly, gives you both.

*The Oligodynamic property is the ability of small amounts of metals to exert a lethal effect on bacteria. (Greek: Oligos/small. Dynamis/power.) The effectiveness of some metals as germicidals is due to the high affinity of cellular proteins for metallic ions. Bacteria cells die due to the cumulative effects of ions within or in contact with the cell, even if the concentration of ions in the solution is miniscule. Exactly why these ions are lethal to bacteria is not fully known but it may be that they disable the bacteria’s ability to deal with oxygen.