Chapter Five: Materials Confused With Colloidal Silver

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Note: The processes described below are used to create materials that can be categorized as colloidal. However, the resulting materials produced by these process in most cases are not validly colloidal by today’s use of the term colloidal silver.

Even though a designation of colloidal was given to the resulting materials made by these processes in the past, in most cases that is no longer be an accurate designation. The unfortunate thing about some of these materials is that they can accurately meet the current definition of being in a colloidal state. This is where confusion can enter and illustrates how past and present confusions have occurred. For instance, silver salts and compounds can be in a colloidal state, but they are not pure silver in water and are completely different than only pure silver in water (pure colloidal silver e.g. hydrosol).

The main point is to illustrate why past confusion regarding what had been called silver occurred. Please see the previous chapters regarding what colloidal silver actually is for clarification.

General Colloidal Production Techniques

1. Dissolution Chemically created colloidal dispersions using a solvent. Solvent examples are gelatin, gum arabic, agar-agar, dextrins, starch, soap, bentonite in water. The process usually involves soaking and heating.

2. Mechanical This production is done using a “colloid Mill” this method is one of the old methods used and is no longer used with silver because the particle size is too large.

3. Electrical and Thermal The electro-colloidal process was first done by Guyton-Morveau in 1809 with gold. The use of metallic wires precipitated into water using the Bredig apparatus was coined the “Bredig method”.

4. Oxidation-reduction This process is the formation of sols by the use of reducing agents. This process has been used extensively to create gold sols / gold hydrosols. but not as often with silver sols. This process was used before colloids as a state of matter were known. Heat and reducing agents such as phosphorus were most commonly used. The preparation process may also involve hydrogen peroxide, formaldehyde, hydrazine and tannin which were used to create the hydrosol.

5. Double decomposition This production method uses double decomposition reactions to create sols. They fall into basically the following groups: oxide, sols, sulfide sols and salt sols. Hydrolysis focuses on pH as a focus and involves complicated chemical reactions by creating a base causing hydrolysis that creates a salt that can be either acid or alkaline. For example adding a small amount of a solution of a salt to boiling water. Another example is hydrous oxide is treated with a small amount of acid or base or of a solution of a salt which is acidic or alkaline and is then dispersed. It is a complicated chemical process normally used to create salts & compounds.

6. Simple precipitation This process is a simple formula. When a solution of substance (A) in liquid (B) is poured into liquid (C) a sol generally arises, if (A) is insoluble in (C) and provided (B) and (C) are capable of being mixed in all proportions. Example: Sulfur dissolves in hydrazine hydrate forming a deep red stable solution when poured into water the result is a clear bright yellow dispersion that is sensitive to carbon dioxide.

Types of Silver

Mild silver Protein: (MSP) This process chemically infuses or binds silver to a protein. The particles of these materials are often larger than a true colloid, and the protein is used to keep the particles in suspension. Parts per million vary from 20 PPM to 200 PPM and concentrations can be as high as 5000 PPM.
Powdered Silver: This production method was developed in Russia. It could be described as both a thermal and electrical process. A very high voltage is used to disintegrate” the silver, also known as water soluble silver.
Ground Silver: This process is just like it sounds. Silver is pulverized and mechanically ground into a fine powder. This process became obsolete in the 1920’s because it did not create a small enough silver particle.
Silver salts: Produced chemically or electrochemically, they are usually best categorized as compounds.

Below are some examples of silver compounds, and their historical or present uses.
Silver Sulfadiazine: Bactericidal and antifungal uses, for decades it has been the standard treatment used in burn cases.

Silver Nitrate: Disinfectant used in podiatry, and placed in infants eyes at birth to prevent blindness. This material is the primary material erroneously equated as being colloidal silver especially in the past, up to the present.

Silver Iodine: Disinfectant

Silver chloride: Disinfectant

Silver Lactate: Astringent & antiseptic.

Silver oxide: Previously used for chorea & epilepsy

Silver picrate: Uses, moniliasis & trichomoniasis.

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