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"Its just a matter of Voltage
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Our
manufacturing process is unique to us. Our constant aim is to provide
high quality at a reasonable price & because of this, we have a growing
customer base that includes many Natural Therapy Centres, Holistic Practitioners
and various other commercial clients as well as thousands of private clients.
We
always endeavour to keep our process as efficient, cost effective and
carbon friendly as possible. Our
extensive quality checks are vital part of our process and explained below.
Over the years, we experimented with various designs,
having looked at most of the available commercial products on the market.
We don't use commercially available generators because through experimentation,
we have found several serious flaws which could possibly be dangerous,
especially in the wrong hands. See FAQ's for a detailed explanation but
the usual integrated design does not allow for the "Maturation"
part of the process, which takes a considerable amount of time to complete."Maturation"
is a very important step, as up to 1 in 5 batches can fail to reach a
stable equilibrium.
Our design utilises laboritory grade borosilicate
glass reaction vessels with separate/removable electrode assembly, so
we can mature one batch in its original vessel whilst making more in another.
The maturation
step is unique to our process & is vital to produce a high quality
solution.

Every batch we make is tested at our production
facility. You cannot make high quality solutions and develop a good reputation
without rigerous testing. We have to produce quality certificates for
certain clients who use our product as an ingredient, so we collect production
data and produce a certificate of manufacture where needed.
Thanks to the in house IT expertise, we
run an IBM Lotus Notes environment that has collected data for years and
goes back to 2005. Prior to that we kept paper records which are still
around somewhere!
More
information here See
here

We make Isolated Colloidal Silver. Isolated means
that the colloid contains silver ions (AG+) & very small silver particles
(AG-) suspended in a medium (distilled water) with an electrical charge
(Zeta Potential). You will see many methods of producing Colloidal Silver
but ideally it would be made using an electrolytic process using pure silver
with pure water.
Two
problems:
- Pure water doesn't conduct electricity.
- Pure silver is never pure, it is 99.9% 99.99% or
99.999% pure. There will always be a trace of impurity. Sterling silver
is only 90% pure and is not used.
Silver
Chloride
To
overcome problem 1 above, certain web authors suggest you make a saline
solution and add this dropwise to the pure water. I find this quite worrying
because a milky white substance (Silver Chloride) is also produced. Although
they insist this isn't a problem the FDA (US Food & Drug Administration)
have stated that this could lead to Argyria. See Research
& FAQs for further information. There are
other catalysts recommended such as sodium bicarbonate (Baking soda)
all of which are unnecessary and should
never be used.
We NEVER use additives.
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We use fine silver (.999) for our electrodes & is certified
.999 fine silver. There are purer silvers available but the cost
increases accordingly. See FAQs but it has been shown that the purity
of the water is more important than the purity of the silver. We
find .999 perfect.
The picture shows two electrodes from an experimental test generator
after a batch had been produced. The centre wire is an unused piece
of silver, for comparison. Note the discolouration on the right
hand electrode. The electrodes we use now are much larger but to
get the whole electrode into the photograph makes it difficult to
see the discolouration. We also use
6 electrodes per generator, which gives a much better and consistent
field in the reaction vessel.
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Steam
distilled water is the best.
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Distilled water is extremely difficult to obtain these days because
it is expensive to produce. Tap/filtered/softened water is totally
unsuitable as it may still contain many heavy elements and could
create harmful compounds during the electrolysis process. Mineral
water is unsuitable because it contains minerals!
We make our own steam distilled water using commercially available
units. The final quality is excellent and it reads 0 PPM. Deionised
water is around 4 PPM and our tap water is 275 PPM. Note 0 PPM means
less than 1 PPM.
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Devon water is possibly the softest water in the UK having been
collected from Dartmoor. This famous moor is part of a an ancient
batholith which is a volcanic magma chamber that has been eroded
over time and is now exposed, producing the beautiful Tors and landscape.
Because it is made up of igneous rock, rain water runs off and is
collected without any significant mineral content being imparted.
This means that we only have to distill our water ONCE to produce
the desired quality necessary for production. The distillation process
is the most energy hungry part of the process and we are deliberately
here because of the water supply. I have noticed other manufacturers
using a double or triple pass process - this is a total waste of
energy and is ecologically unsound, emitting 2 - 3 time the carbon
required to obtain the same product. In this day and age, this is
very important and we are fully aware of our carbon commitment &
please refer to our Ecology policy to see what we are doing about
it.
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Our process starts by testing the steam distilled
water with a calibrated PPM meter (Parts Per Million) to determine
the impurities in the water. We call this the "Base count".
We use a Hanna DST-1 PPM Meter.
Cleanliness is imperative in all stages of production.
The reaction vessel & silver electrodes are thoroughly cleaned
after each use. During the whole process, only glass is used as
this is deemed inert. The only man made item used is the DST meter.
We use glass reaction vessels, glass funnels and glass bottles.
This helps to preserve the charges on the silver particles.
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We then assemble the reaction vessels. We use
laboritory grade borosilicate glass reaction vessels and six silver
electrodes. Using constant current stabilised power supplies,(One
per vessel) we pass a steady current through the electrodes. This
is also done in the dark to preserve the delicate charges.
Using over 30 volts to start the process, the
current will rise to its optimum level, then the voltage is automatically
reduced to maintain the correct current. This is very important
as the size of the particles is directly related to the current.
If the current isn't controlled, a "Runaway"
reaction will occur and larger, ineffective, particles will be produced.
We have found that the optimum current varies depending on many
other variables.
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Power supply and multimeter(Ammeter)
for one of our generators.
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The time taken for the reaction to complete is dependent on the
temperature of the water but we estimate the time necessary from
the initial temperature & the ambient lab temperature. We use
an external heat source, when necessary, to maintain the reaction
in the correct temperature range and the convection currents help
to continually stir the solution in a natural manner, so no mechanical
aids are required.
Although increased heat decreases the reaction time and particle
size, it can also produce a larger range of particle sizes. We know
from experimentation the range to use and it uses less energy, which
has to be a good thing these days. The smaller the particles the
better the quality of the Colloidal Silver. We can tell when the
reaction is nearly complete by the voltage. We use an ammeter to
monitor the exact current for each vessel.
We aim for a concentration of 12 - 14 PPM for safety reasons (
See FAQs and Argyria).
We do not make concentrated batches and water it down. When the
colloid is at the correct concentration, it has to pass our quality
checks (Maturation) and only then bottled into an amber light proof
bottle with a Klick-Loc cap.
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- The most important step.
As stated in FAQ's, if the silver particles are
too large, the Colloidal Silver is useless & will not work.
This is why this stage of the process is so important.
Maturation is more than important.
We can make Colloidal silver one day and repeat it the next day
with different results. Although ambient temperature and final current
are important, it also seems to be dependent on other factors, such
as the weather, earth's magnetic field, the cycle of the moon and
other unknown factors. This is confirmed by Peter Lindemann in his
article "A closer look at Colloidal Silver" in the Research
section. This may seem unscientific but I am serious, this does
happen.
The only sure way of knowing if
we have good batch of Colloidal Silver is when it has matured and
been tested. This usually involves an initial PPM check and a laser
scatter check called the Tyndall effect, after maturation has completed.
The colour is the best indicator of particle size & colloid
stability.
Maturation
can take several hours. Immediately after production, the colloid
is in a state of chaos because of the inherent turbulence cause
by the electrical fields & circulating thermal currents. It
takes time for the colloid to reach equilibrium which we call the
"Developing" stage. During this stage, the colloid is
still in its reaction vessel but moved to a cooler environment,
still in the dark, to allow the colour to develop.
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Although we use a low power hand laser
to test the solution, the final colour is the key to quality. The
colour is due to light scattering & a direct indication of particle
size. We aim for sizes in the region of .001 to .04 microns (uM)
which is 1 to 40 nanometres. See Wikipedia
for further information on nanoparticles.
A matured batch is shown on the left of
the picture compared to pure distilled water on the right. The heat
pad is the white plastic item underneath, with a meter to the right
to give you an idea of scale.
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Any batch that fails is discarded, down the sink. We have the cleanest
drains in the UK. Do be careful if you use a cesspit. It may stop
working !
This particular batch failed to mature correctly, as you can see
from the colour. It finally turned grey as the colloid was unstable
and eventually agglomerated into large particles. This was due to
a deliberately high production temperature whilst investigating
the optimum temperature range.
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Again, the maturation procedure is unique to us
and is only possible because of the unique design of our generators. This
allows us to use a modular approach to commercial production and allows
extended quality checks without sacrificing production volume.

We have been manufacturing Colloidal
Silver for many years and have seen many sites come and go. We thank our
regular clients as they are the backbone of our business, the proof of
our quality and the reason we are and intend to be, the major force behind
Colloidal Silver in the UK & EU for many years to come.
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