All About Silver (Ag)
I am a scientist by education (I graduated from Messiah College with a Premed degree in Biology) and have always been facinated by the chemical elements. My business is making custom jewelry out of sterling silver beads, but there is so much more to silver. Here are a few interesting tidbits:
Physical Properties
- Chemical symbol: Ag
- Atomic weight: 107.870
- Atomic Number: 47
- Melting Point: 1761 degrees F or 960 degrees C
- Specific gravity: 10.5
Little Known Facts
- It can be hammered into sheets so thin that it would take 100,000 of them to make a stack an inch high.
- These sheets are so thin that light shines through them.
- It can be drawn into wire finer than a human hair.
- It is the best conductor of heat and electricity among the metals, but its greater cost and tarnishability prevented it from being used in place of copper for wiring.
- When melted, it can absorb as much as 20 times its own volume of oxygen.
- Pure silver is too soft to stand up under constant wear, it is usually mixed with copper to form an alloy (sterling silver) before it is made into commercial articles.
- It is stable in pure air and water, but ozone and sulphur cause it to turn black (tarnish).
- The words for “silver” and “money” are the same in at least 14 languages.
Uses
- Its principal use is as a precious metal.
- Its salts, especially silver nitrate, are widely used in photography (which is the largest single end use of silver).
- Despite its cost, it is used in electrical and electronic products which need its superior conductivity.
- It is used in mirrors which need superior reflectivity for visible light. Common mirrors are backed with aluminium.
- It is used in the manufacture of jewelry and silverware, which are traditionally made from the silver alloy Sterling Silver, 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.
- It is awarded as medals in competition denoting second place.
- It is used in dental alloys for fittings and fillings.
- Silver fulminate is a powerful explosive.
- Silver iodide has been used in attempts to seed clouds to produce rain.
- Silver oxide is used as a positive electrode (cathode) in watch batteries.
- Colloidal silver is an antibacterial/antibiotic treatment used in alternative medicine.
- It is used as the basis for many monetary systems. Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold. In Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe, it was considered more valuable than gold.
