Test your colloidal silver to make sure it's the real thing.
Colloidal silver is an alternative health product that is growing in popularity because of its alleged antibiotic properties, particularly as people are increasingly becoming resistant to pharmaceutical antibiotics. True colloidal silver is expensive to make and unfortunately unscrupulous manufacturers label other substances as the real thing. Usually these other products are either ionic silver or silver protein solutions which do not have the same properties as true colloidal silver (colloidal refers to particles, not ions) and silver protein products may even have a negative impact on health. It is possible to test these products to establish whether they are fraudulent or the real thing.
Instructions
1. Add table salt to the solution to see if it is ionic silver. Table salt is sodium chloride and, if there are silver ions present in the solution, they will mix with the chloride ions in the salt and turn the solution white and cloudy. Unfortunately, if the product contains no silver at all, this test will not work. However, also remember that ionic silver is completely clear and colorless, whereas true colloidal silver is not. The colloidal particles in the real thing absorb light, giving the substance an apparent color, or will make the liquid look darker. It will not be completely colorless. This may also highlight a product containing no silver at all as a fake.
2. Shake the product to see if it is a silver protein solution. If it is, it will form a layer of foam at the top which will remain there for several minutes. Also look at the color of the solution. The color will range from pale amber to nearly black if the product is silver protein.
3. Check the color of your product to confirm your analysis, if you have eliminated the possibility of fakes using steps one and two. It should be neither fully colorless nor fully colored, but should instead have an "apparent" color. Because the small silver particles in it block light from passing through the liquid, it will appear darker than a clear substance. True colloidal silver will contain between 50 and 80 percent silver particles. The rest of the substance will be . The real product has the most surface area of silver as the silver particles used in it are so small; this is a key characteristic of colloidal silver. If you have a laser pen and shine this through true , you will see the beam shining brightly through it as it reflects off the tiny particles of silver.
Tags: colloidal silver, ionic silver, real thing, silver protein, colloidal silver
