Production Techniques and Chemistry > Colloidal Silver Production
How much is too much reducing agent
kephra:
--- Quote from: RickinWI on October 30, 2014, 12:51:08 AM ---I have always had excellent results with colloidal silver that I reduced with Cinn Extract (crystal clear & nice color). I have struggled until just recently with sugar reduced though. It was inconsistent. Sometimes good sometimes just fair and sometimes (long time ago) almost as bad as your last pic. It wasn't until I drastically diluted the Karo & reduced hot with only a drop or 2 of dilute Karo that I started getting some consistently great results.
--- End quote ---
Rick, an excess of corn syrup does not make any difference. It will not make your solution turbid or extra dark unless you have a lot more silver in the water than you think.
This morning, I made 1 quart of 20 ppm ionic silver, put 1/2 in each of two bottles. I added 2 drops of dilute corn syrup to bottle A, and 20 drops to bottle B. Both bottles heated in my microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
So, Rick you have something else wrong. The only thing excess glucose should do is make it slightly sweet. Perhaps your current isn't what you think, as its the silver content that makes a difference in how dark it gets.
Bizill:
Thanks for this. I was wondering just this but was afraid to ask and didn't want to further experiment just yet.
RickinWI:
Hmmm, that is strange. Different results than I would have had. Next batch I make I will do the same thing & take pics.
Both A & B are very nice looking, but if I look very closely it seems that A might be a little more crystal clear than B ? Or it could just be the angle.
My setup uses a 10 mA regulator. My last batch (2.5 L) ran @ 9.8 mA for 75 minutes so should be between 19 - 19.5 PPM. I get very little plate out on cathode. I have 3 multi-meters and I switch them around occasionally to double-check them. The better of the 3 meters is the one I usually keep in series to measure mA. (The other 2 are Harbor Freight cheap ones but they all 3 read about the same) I use one of those to watch the voltage.
Will try to attach a pic I just took of the above mentioned batch.
I did my wine glass test on this batch to make sure it was fully reduced.
Gene:
Just splitting hairs here but 75 minutes, 9.8ma, 2500ml is 19.6PPM.
I agree with Kephra. Its not the corn syrup unless there's something horribly wrong with the bottle of it you have but that stuff keeps easily 10 years (I had one that got lost in the back of the pantry go DARK on me - like a dark beer color and yeah, I tossed it but it had to be back there 15 years, easy, maybe longer).
Its not your run time nor your calculations as they all look dead on.
The only other two parameters are the amount of water (which I'm sure you measured accurately) and the amount of electrolyte.
Water PH varies (yeah, even distilled and maybe over a 1-2PH range too). If you don't have enough electrolyte in it where your PH is low and you come up under 7PH at the end of the run, the sugar really can't do its reduction job properly. The solution needs to be at least slightly alkaline for that to happen properly.
Why not try this. Next batch, once you're done making the ionic, decant off a couple hundred ml of it into a separate jar and figure out how much extra sodium carbonate electrolyte to add to bring the total up to 20 drops per liter (1M solution) equivalent and try reducing that with the prescribed amount of corn syrup.
Heat it to just hot enough you can't really touch the jar and hold it for more than second or two and then just leave it go. For me by this point its already well on its way to straw color and the conversion completes in a couple minutes on its own. No real reason or need to boil it and as Kephra says, the conversion will go more slowly if you only get the solution warm where it could take a couple hours to complete where you get a tighter particle size distribution for doing so BUT lets do it in a way the conversion happens more quickly so you can see it progress. At the temp I suggest, it should be all over in less than 5 minutes for sure.
And let us know what happens if you choose to try this.
Its going to be something simple thats wrong. Always is. What its rarely though, is obvious.
RickinWI:
I was thinking that different water pH might be the reason for differing results.
Good suggestion, I will try doing the test you mentioned next batch & report back.
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