Colloidal Silver and Gold Forum

Glucose syrup (which is NOT light clear corn syrup) has fructose in it. The only place I've seen that I can get it is a beer/winemaking supply shop.  IIRC, it has a DE equivalency of around 2 or 3.  Looking online, there are different formulations so its probably not a good thing to use to reduce with.  I have seen it in person. Its kind of a clear, thick syrup.

If you can't get clear corn syrup, maltodextrin works just as well. The only downsides are the need to use substantially more (which hurts nothing) to reduce properly and some people perceive a "taste" from maltodextrin they don't care for. I don't taste it though. Also, for the higher concentration of it in solution because of the longer chain molecules, it will produce a slightly darker result at the same PPM as other reducers. Its not significant but enough its noticeable.  If you use it and you're not sure, simply dilute a little of your result (if its over 20PPM) to 20PPM concentration and look at the color. If its slightly darker yellow than what you're used to, you're good to go.

Straight glucose powder (dextrose in food use) works too but its a little touchy given you need so little. Some have used it to great success. I bought a pound from the beer/winemaking shop when I bought a pound of malto also and I did try the glucose to reduce with but every time, I got a somewhat cloudy result. I never figured out why so I abandoned using it.  I do recall someone else here who tried glucose powder had a similar problem they never figured out either.

There was something called golden syrup somebody here was using which seemed to work for them but I've now stated my total knowledge on the subject (wink).

There are other reducing agents you could use including cinnamon extract (instructions on how to make this are in the Kephra's notebook section in one of the top pinned articles).

Another alternative is to make invert sugar. Information on how to do this is also in the Kephra's notebook section.  Basically its table sugar syrup (what they call invert syrup). This purportedly works well to reduce with also though I've never had the inkling to try it.

All you need to do if you're making higher PPM Colloidal Silver is to process at about 150F (hotplate with a good temperature control works just fine). You don't need special glassware (I use a 1 quart mason jar to great success).

When you turn on your power supply that feeds the current limiter which is connected to your cell, the current should IMMEDIATELY be whatever the current setpoint is. NOTHING "ramps". Aside from adjusting the current setpoint, the only other adjustment you can make is raising or lowering the cathode in the cell to change the cell voltage.

No magic, not rocket science. Some things may not be obvious but they're easy to figure out (or you can ask us if you're stumped).

What you've encountered with all the confusing information from all over the place is the same crap we all have early on... and then we found this site and learned the truth and realized that most "experts" don't know their arse from their elbow but for sure they keep telling you they do very convincingly(sigh).

Companies that make commercial Colloidal Silver equipment are in the business of making money and sadly many of these companies are scams that charge a lot of money for something you can build better yourself for a couple dollars.

As they say, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).  ...Only YOU can protect YOU (sad but true).

Thank you folks for donating your time to me. I well appreciate that. Our time is limited.

I have never heared those things about current and electrode size in my local "school of thought".
I think there is many things going wrong with that...

Thank god gave me the gift of being able to communicate with you in a common language (trade names and local customary names are excluded  ), so I can look over the pond.

Maybe I should briefly describe the local state of the art. This may be of interest for you.
You run with either 5 or 10 mA . Don´t know which and when. Heat pure DW to the boiling point but then no more. If possible, brew in a double walled glas to keep the heat. There is a magic ppm formula but this falls flat, because it assumes full current. Unfortunately current rises slowly until the current reduction kicks in, which may take several minutes. Sometimes cut-off is never reached even after hours. No stirring, no additives. There is some who use pulsed dc (a la zapper), some single polarity (which sometimes produces a yellow result), some switching polarity. It is left totally unclear which is better. Devices go up to 60V (which is the maximum allowable voltage for home use) to get things going at all. Single polarity produces black or grey sludge on the anode. Some devices use a cathode different than silver, but in this case it is not a bad thing to stay with both silver because people are bound to switch to alternating polarity without taking care of that.

There is one person who really understands the hardware side of it. His devices are unparalleld. But he seems to despise the "Boilers". He appears to be some kind of guru figure to the community.

Interestingly, all contact I tried to make with them was disabled by divine intervention. All things failed.

And then there is another guru who crowds disciples around him, who sells tinkerer´s boxes that contain nothing but a single resistor. The box is cheap, but not the electrodes made of unobtainium rare earths.

You can buy a box of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) from most grocery stores in the US (1/2-1 pound box) for less than $1.  This, converted to sodium carbonate will yield you enough to last you probably half a millennium (wink).  Also, when converting sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate (by baking it at 350F+ in an oven for an hour), what you wind up with is anhydrous sodium carbonate. The mined, store-bought washing soda form has a few water molecules attached to each sodium carbonate molecule so necessarily, you use LESS of the anhydrous form than you would of the store-bought washing soda form. The correct amount of anhydrous is stated in the Kephra's Notebook section of the forum in one of the top pinned articles (I don't remember which one).

Given its anhydrous, if you produce your own, simply store it in a jar with a tight fitting lid to keep its exposure to moisture to a minimum. Sodium compounds are usually all slightly to some VERY hygroscopic (they absorb water from the air) which you'd want to endeavor to prevent if you intend to store the sodium carbonate you've produced for any length of time.

Regarding the current you're processing with, this is directly related to the surface area of the silver anode you're using. For wire anodes, perhaps even 5ma is too much. For silver bullion bar anodes (1oz troy), without stirring, you could probably push it up to 5-10ma, maybe 15ma with stirring.

To see if the current you're running at is too high, once you have your cell running, shine a flashlight through the cell and look at the area around the anode. If you see long whispy whafts of what resembles cigarette smoke leaving the anode, your current is too high. You need to back it down until they go away.

Patience is a virtue and with making Colloidal Silver by the electrolysis method, its a necessity. Production moves at a snails pace and you just have to bide your time to let it happen properly.

At room temp (this is stated as 75F cell temp, NOT 68F thats commonly referred to as room temp - at least in the US), the solubility limit of silver oxide in water is a mere 22PPM. Given this would indicate you're processing cold (Not heating the cell), the limit of production is the stated 20PPM. You NEVER want to push more silver ions into the water than the solubility limit because what exceeds the limit will precipitate out of solution and never reduce.  Given with cold processing you run the electrolysis to push the cell to the 20PPM ionic silver state where you then heat the cell and add the reducer AFTER the run, this dictates the 20PPM limit.

At 150F (usually where we process when making higher than 20PPM batches), the solubility limit is 40PPM. The trick with higher PPM production is to keep the speed of reduction (reducer MUST be added before the run) proceeding FASTER than the speed at which you're pushing silver ions into the water to keep the concentration of ionic silver in the water below 40PPM for the entire run. Also, when you reach the time limit, yeah, turn off the current but leave the cell on the hotplate for maybe another 10-15 minutes to make sure the silver oxide you pushed into the water for the last 10-15 minutes of the run actually reduces.  Having said this, generally the volume of water in the cell is sufficient to hold the cell temp above about 140F for more than enough time if even its removed from the hotplate but the way I look at it is that I'm in no rush and I have plenty of other things to do after a run (cleaning things,...) so I do that first before removing the cell from the hotplate. To each his own.

Its not rocket science but its not always obvious either.

Whoever you have bee listening to does not know what they are talking about.

it looks like

This also tells me that your generator is useless for making quality colloidal silver.

I modified it so that it can be  just a 60V source with 5/10 mA current limiting.

Baking powder is not baking soda, also called bicarbonate of soda.  Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate, and I can't imagine a country that does not have it available.

Aah! Instant enlightenment! That makes sense to me. The baylonian language confusion strikes again. Nobody would call it "baking soda" here. At least I have never consciously attributed the term to "Natron" as they call it here. In fact it is ubiquitous. I even have about 10kg of pristine powder in my shed.
This does not happen for the first time that I cannot fathom what product Americans or English speak of until I realize, it is sitting right next to me, but with a totally different name.

I just realize that "eating soda" (obviously different to "washing soda", although very often used for cleaning purposes) is not commonly used for baking purposes hereabouts. I know that potassium carbonate is used for such purposes, but rarely.

Thank you again. This gets me going.

Thank you for your reply. Makes sense what you say about moving silver between the electrodes. In fact the local consensus is (can you call it "consensus" if nobody has an explanation?) that it is not known why there is no sludge build-up at the cathode and what and if there is a difference between a clear and a yellow ahem liquid.

Indeed, the product I gain from this mode tastes very metallic and has a strong Tyndall effect - which is supposed to be "good",  until I learned more here. Also, there is a considerable dark fall-out.

@ baking powder: I looked up what the local baking powders are made of.

They usually consist of one or more carbonates an/or bicarbonates, acid salts like disodium hydrogen phosphate or potassium acid tartrate. Plus starch or oats fibers up to 65% as bulk agent. Sometimes they contain  lemon extract for taste and acidifying and artificial vanilla.

Eminently acceptable for a cake, but for making Colloidal Silver? I`ll rather get some carbonate from a chemistry dealer and be on the safe side. They have it 99,7% pure. Ironically, this is far cheaper than getting the small envelopes in the supermarket.