So What's Colloidal Silver?

Peter L. Reynolds, Ph.D.
Mar 20, 2015
2 min read

As you're probably guessing from what you've already read, colloidal silver is classified as a metal sol. That means the solid nanoparticles of silver are suspended in a liquid medium of water. The nanoparticles should range in size from 5nm (5nm = five nanometers = five thousandths of a micron = five thousandths of one millionth of a meter) to 100nm.

silver nanoparticles sizes colloidal silver

Like all metal sols, colloidal silver is lyophobic (medium-hating). Since the medium is water, then colloidal silver is also hydrophobic (water-hating), as well (Tricky to be both, right?). In other words, the water does not chemically help the silver nanoparticles remain suspended. As with other metal sols, the nanoparticles, must be held in suspension through the action of a like-electrical-charge with each nanoparticle attempting to stay as far away from all other neighboring nanoparticles as possible because of the repelling force of the like-electrical-charge. The correct term to refer to these like-electrically-charged nanoparticles of silver is silver ions. This dynamic force is only effective if the mass of the nanoparticles is small enough that gravity doesn't pull everything to the bottom.

Charged silver nanoparticles = silver ions

The use of the word (believe it or not), silver, in colloidal silver is not metaphorical. In this case, silver means the white metal element called silver (Ag). The nanoparticles of silver in colloidal silver must be a very pure silver. Often, .999 fine silver is the minimum level of silver purity used in colloidal silver. As you're probably aware, that level of purity far surpasses even sterling silver's level of purity.

The water in colloidal silver is often distilled, demineralized water. This means that other minerals, microorganisms, etc., have been removed. If other minerals are present, especially if those mineral particles have an opposite electrical charge from the silver nanoparticles, the silver and the other mineral particles will adhere to each other, growing larger and larger until gravity pulls the whole glob to the bottom of the container. Therefore, demineralized, distilled water has to be the level of water purity used in colloidal silver.

The colloidal silver spray bottle offered for sale by Silver Living Tech is exactly this kind of colloidal silver. There are a few other companies out there who manufactured and sell properly manufactured colloidal silver, but they are only a handful.