Recently, Mike from Lifeforcecolloidalsilver.com answered a customers question about an excellent youtube video by zerofossilfuel that was full of Mike’s disinformation.  Zero was demonstrating making true colloidal silver using a constant current system with sodium carbonate as an electrolyte and corn syrup as a reducing agent to convert ionic silver to colloidal silver.  This is a tried and true method, and a similar method is used by bonafide lab researchers when researching the properties of silver colloids.

You can see this misinformation post here.

Lets look at the 3 main responses by Lifeforce Mike:

1. Mike says the bubble coming off the cathode are from electrolyzing water.  Well Mike, I’m afraid thats not true.  At the cathode, sodium ions are being reduced to sodium metal, but sodium metal reacts violently with water creating sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.  This is where the hydrogen comes from. Mike goes on to claim that the yellow color of the colloid comes from silver carbonate, but this is also untrue.  If Lifeforce Mike actually knew his chemistry, he would know that dissolving sodium carbonate in water produces sodium hydroxide and carbonic acid.  But carbonic acid is a weak acid with a kA (acid dissociation constant )of about 4.3X10^-7. That means that only 1 out of 2.2 million carbonic acid molecules dissociate into ions, whereas all of the sodium remains as ions.  IE:  There are 2.2 million more hydroxide ions than carbonate ions.  So the amount of silver carbonate created is negligible
2. Next, Lifeforce Mike goes on to say that the Karo corn syrup together with the sodium carbonate make sodium gluconate.  This is also untrue, as all sodium compounds in water totally dissociate.  What does happen is that the sodium hydroxide from hydrolyzing the sodium carbonate converts the glucose molecule from a ring structure to a linear structure activating it as a reducing agent for silver.  Mike goes on to say now that the sugar caramelizes which causes the yellow color in the solution.  Of course, this is easily disproven simply by mixing the sodium carbonate and Karo to see if it turns yellow…. it does not.  I guess Mike is too lazy to test that.
3. Mike goes on to criticize Zero for not using the Tyndall test to see if a colloid was produced.  Zero did not have to do this test because he already knew what he had made, as he had followed the scientific method of producing it.  Also, a strong positive Tyndall effect is not really desirable.  The Tyndall effect shows large particles, large enough to reflect light.  Silver nanoparticles are much smaller than light waves and hence do not reflect light.  So a positive Tyndall means the particles are not small enough to be therapeutically effective.  Silver nanoparticles instead exhibit the Plasmon Resonance effect which makes them filter out light of a specific frequency/wavelength, normally blue light.  This leaves red and green which the eye sees as yellow color.Mike yet makes another mistake by saying that ionic silver is tasteless while silver nanoparticles taste metallic.  The human tongue’s taste buds are sensitive only to ions and very small proteins.   Being much larger than ions or proteins, silver nanoparticles cannot trigger taste buds, and therefore are tasteless.Mike’s last bone of contention is that ZeroFossil used 0.999 pure silver instead of 0.9999.  Mike thinks this bad because of the possible contaminants in 0.999 silver.  The truth is that any contaminants caused by the 0.999 silver will be in the parts per billion range, which is far purer than any drinking water, and is absolutely no health hazard.  There is nothing wrong with using 0.9999 purity silver, but there is also no need to worry about it.

In summation, Lifeforce Mike is a good example of how a little knowledge without understanding is a bad thing.

In 2008, I started the colloidal silver forum to combat the plethora of misinformation about colloidal silver which pollutes the internet.  It seems to be a losing battle.