Silver is a natural broad-spectrum antibiotic, used since ancient times to kill disease-causing bacteria and viruses. To be effective, however, silver must be in the COLLOIDAL state. A COLLOID consists of extremely small particles (only 12 to 15 ATOMS each!) suspended in pure water. The only drawback to this wonderful substance is the cost - $10 to $25 per ounce! You can, however, easily make colloidal silver at home, for no more than the cost of distilled water. The easiest way to produce the fine particles required is to pass a small electric current through the water using wire electrodes made of pure (.999 fine) silver.

There is no such thing as "golden" colloidal silver. Silver is white. Lange's Handbook of Chemistry lists silver as "...the whitest of metals. Pure silver particles suspended in water should have a very slight white-colored fog to it.

If you make colloidal silver with a very low current, it will take a long time... long enough for silver compounds to be formed due to electrolysis. Even distilled water contains trace elements, and Merck's Handbook describes many silver compounds as "pale yellow." They include silver bromide, silver carbonate, silver chlorite, silver hyponitrate, silver iodide, silver nitrite, silver phosphate and silver picrate. Some of these compounds are described as toxic.

The proper way to make colloidal silver is to use enough current to cause tiny silver particles (each 12 to 15 atoms) to be "knocked" off of the electrodes, making the desired concentration in 7 to 15 minutes. This is a MECHANICAL process. You want to do it quickly enough so that chemical compounds do not have time to form. If the process takes 20 to 45 minutes, the chemical process overshadows the mechanical effect, and you get silver compounds. WHAT compounds depend on the content of the original water. Some silver compounds are quite toxic. Merck's lists silver nitrate as highly poisonous.

In order to conduct electricity, a TINY amount of salt must be added to the water. Without it, you cannot get enough current to flow. This salt must be very pure, or you risk adding more impurities which will combine with the silver to make still more chemical compounds. You want plain, pure salt.

Sea salt is the residue from evaporated ocean water. The ocean contains not only sodium chloride, but EVERY MINERAL KNOWN TO EXIST ON THE PLANET! Sea salt is NOT pure sodium chloride, but contains virtually everything on earth. It may make a good trace-mineral supplement, but DO NOT use it in making colloidal silver.

I looked at the salt available at the grocery store and found that, while some contain aluminum salts as a desiccant, Morton non-iodized salt does not. It does have a tiny amount of sodium silicate, which in the "few grains" required should cause no problem. A better idea might be to use "Canning and Pickling Salt" found in the canning supply section. It is generally pure salt.

If you're really paranoid, you can get pure sodium chloride in a sterile distilled water base in small bottles from your pharmacist. In the tiny amount required, one small bottle should last nearly forever.

Many "colloidal silver makers" have appeared on the market with price tags ranging from $120 to $250, and every one I've seen has consisted of a small plastic box containing three 9 volt batteries and a light bulb! While this circuit works, the current varies with the water conductivity, the condition of the batteries, and the length of electrode immersed in the water, making it hard to get a consistent concentration of silver from batch to batch. It's also pretty hard to justify paying $250 for a $5 plastic box and a tenth-ounce of silver wire!

To address these problems, I designed a circuit which is AC line powered and uses an electronic constant-current regulator to eliminate the batteries and guesswork. Rather than the skinny electrode wire used on the other devices, I chose heavy 12 gauge silver electrodes, which will last for many hundreds of gallons. The Colloidal Silver Generator will transform 16 ounces of distilled water to high-quality colloidal silver in just 10 minutes. This device was featured in the April 1997 issue of 73 AMATEUR RADIO TODAY magazine.

I'm offering the AC powered Colloidal Silver Generator, containing REAL ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY and including a pair of extra-heavy silver electrodes for much less than others are selling their "box of batteries!" The bare circuit board, along with the schematic diagram and layout, is also available for those with the technical skills to build their own device.
 

BARE CIRCUIT BOARD with schematic, layout, and parts list.....................................$5.00

.999 FINE SILVER ELECTRODES made from #12 silver wire.....................................$10.00

COLLOIDAL SILVER GENERATOR assembled and tested
(complete with electrodes and instructions)....................................................................$74.50

For more information, send a SASE to the above address or E-MAIL to thomil@bioelectrifier.com .