Colloidal Silver – How much ppm?

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Updated – July 7, 2024

How many ppm (parts per million) should colloidal silver be present in order to be bactericidal on the one hand and not harmful on the other?

The following article addresses this question in more detail. Because there are several factors that influence the concentration achieved. It is therefore essential to know these in order to ultimately achieve the intended concentration.

Which devices are suitable for production and what should be taken into account when selecting them will be discussed here described in more detail.

factors

There are various factors that all influence the concentration of the desired silver water. The most important are:

• Distilled water
• Conductivity of distilled water
• Water temperature
• Length and diameter of the electrodes
• Electrode distance
• Electrode immersion depth
• Electrode current

The following table shows - for a given electrode length of 80 mm and an immersion depth of 70 mm - after entering the data in the yellow fields, the amount of water in liters (please use a decimal point instead of a comma), electrode current in mA and the desired concentration in ppm, the required duration of electrolysis in the green field in minutes:

What concentration?

Which concentration can be considered sensible is explained by the properties of colloidal solutions. The higher the concentration, the more likely the dissolved particles are to clump together, thereby reducing their surface area and thus losing their effectiveness.

In general, it can be said that concentrations of 10 ppm are considered to be the most common.

However, in order to avoid clumping here too, the electrolysis should be carried out directly in the bottle in which the solution is to be stored, because the finely dissolved particles can bind to one another again during the decanting process.

Since silver is a light-sensitive substance, the bottle should be made of brown glass and always kept in an airtight container. Any shaking is to be avoided.
Removal can best be done with a glass pipette, as the solution is only minimally moved mechanically.

Measuring instruments for determining ppm

There are a variety of inexpensive devices available for conductance or ppm measurement, but all of them are unsuitable for their intended purposes.

For the actual – and still cost-effective – accurate ppm determination, a weighing process under laboratory conditions is required for each individual production.
Before and after producing a quantity of colloidal silver water, the electrodes used are weighed with a high-precision laboratory balance. The weight difference between the initial weight and that after production represents the silver that has gone into solution.

Another very precise method is the ICP spectroscopy (Inductive-Coupled-Plasma). However, due to the cost, only specialized laboratories have access to this type of measurement technology.

Warning notice

Silver is not a natural trace element in the human body. It cannot be completely broken down, but remains stored in all organs of the body. Only a very small proportion is broken down and excreted via the liver and kidneys.

This leads to silver poisoning, which has a wide variety of forms and is irreversible.

The absorption of silver through the skin should not be underestimated. A hand bath, for example, can quickly close Dyshidrosis lead, which manifests itself in a large-scale rash with itchy and weeping pustules and results in a lengthy healing phase with regeneration of the entire skin area.