Periodic Table of Elements: LANL

For centuries many countries used silver for coinage. The United
States monetary system was based on the silver standard from 1933
until 1968.

Silver

Atomic Number: 47 Atomic Radius: 203 pm (Van der Waals)

Atomic Symbol: Ag Melting Point: 961.78 °C
Atomic Weight: 107.9 Boiling Point: 2162 °C
Electron Configuration: [Kr]5s14d10 Oxidation States: 1

History

The Latin word for silver is argentum. Silver has been known since ancient times. It is
mentioned in Genesis. Slag dumps in Asia Minor and on islands in the Aegean Sea indicate
that man learned to separate silver from lead as early as 3000 B.C.

Sources

Silver occurs natively and in ores such as argentite (Ag 2S) and horn silver (AgCl); lead, lead-
zinc, copper, gold, and copper-nickel ores are principal sources. Mexico, Canada, Peru, and
the U.S. are the principal silver producers in the western hemisphere.

Production

Silver is also recovered during electrolytic refining of copper. Commercial fine silver
contains at least 99.9% silver. Purities of 99.999+% are available commercially.

Properties

Pure silver has a brilliant white metallic luster. It is a little harder than gold and is very ductile
and malleable, being exceeded only by gold and perhaps palladium. Pure silver has the
highest electrical and thermal conductivity of all metals, and possesses the lowest contact
resistance. It is stable in pure air and water, but tarnishes when exposed to ozone, hydrogen
sulfide, or air containing sulfur. The alloys of silver are important.
Uses

Sterling silver is used for jewelry, silverware, etc. where appearance is paramount. This alloy
contains 92.5% silver, the remainder being copper or some other metal. Silver is of the
utmost importance in photography, about 30% of the U.S. industrial consumption going into
this application. It is used for dental alloys. Silver is used in making solder and brazing
alloys, electrical contacts, and high capacity silver-zinc and silver-cadmium batteries. Silver
paints are used for making printed circuits. It is used in mirror production and may be
deposited on glass or metals by chemical deposition, electrode position, or by evaporation.
When freshly deposited, it is the best reflector of visible light known, but is rapidly tarnished
and loses much of its reflectance. It is a poor reflector of ultraviolet. Silver fulminate, a
powerful explosive, is sometimes formed during the silvering process. Silver iodide is used in
seeding clouds to produce rain. Silver chloride has interesting optical properties as it can be
made transparent; it also is a cement for glass. Silver nitrate, or lunar caustic, the most
important silver compound, is used extensively in photography. Silver for centuries has been
used traditionally for coinage by many countries of the world. In recent times, however,
consumption of silver has greatly exceeded the output.

Handling

While silver itself is not considered to be toxic, most of its salts are poisonous. Exposure to
silver (metal and soluble compounds, as Ag) in air should not exceed 0.01 mg/m 3, (8-hour
time-weighted average - 40 hour week). Silver compounds can be absorbed in the circulatory
system and reduced silver deposited in the various tissues of the body. A condition, known as
argyria, results with a grayish pigmentation of the skin and mucous membranes. Silver has
germicidal effects and kills many lower organisms effectively without harm to higher
animals.
Characteristics

Silver is produced during certain types of supernova explosions by nucleosynthesis from

lighter elements through the r-process, a form of nuclear fusion that produces many elements
heavier than iron, of which silver is one.

Silver is a very ductile, malleable (slightly less so than gold), univalent coinage metal, with a
brilliant white metallic luster that can take a high degree of polish. Protected silver has higher
optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm. At wavelengths
shorter than 450 nm, silver's reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero
near 310 nm.

The electrical conductivity of silver is the highest of all metals, even higher than copper, but
it is not widely used for electrical purposes due to its much higher cost. An exception to this
is in radio-frequency engineering, particularly at VHF and higher frequencies, where silver
plating is employed to improve electrical conductivity of parts and wires (at high frequencies
current tends to flow on the surface of conductors, not their interior, hence silver plating
greatly improves overall conductivity). Silver also has the lowest contact resistance of any
metal. During World War II in the US, 13,540 tons were used in the electromagnets used for
enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper. Pure silver has the
highest thermal conductivity of any metal, although those of the nonmetal carbon in the form
of diamond and superfluid helium II are higher.

Silver halides are photosensitive and are remarkable for their ability to record a latent image
that can later be developed chemically. Silver is stable in pure air and water, but tarnishes
when it is exposed to air or water containing ozone or hydrogen sulfide, the latter forming a
black layer of silver sulfide which can be cleaned off with dilute hydrochloric acid. [10] The
most common oxidation state of silver is +1 (for example, silver nitrate, AgNO3); the less
common +2 compounds (for example, silver(II) fluoride, AgF 2), and the even less common
+3 (for example, potassium tetrafluoroargentate(III), KAgF4) and even +4 compounds (for
example, potassium hexafluoroargentate(IV), K2AgF6)[11] are also known.
Compounds

Silver metal dissolves readily in nitric acid (HNO3) to produce silver nitrate (AgNO3), a
transparent crystalline solid that is photosensitive and readily soluble in water. Silver nitrate
is used as the starting point for the synthesis of many other silver compounds, as an
antiseptic, and as a yellow stain for glass in stained glass. Silver metal does not react with
sulfuric acid, which is used in jewelry-making to clean and remove copper oxide firescale
from silver articles after silver soldering or annealing. Silver reacts readily with sulfur or
hydrogen sulfide H2S to produce silver sulfide, a dark-colored compound familiar as the
tarnish on silver coins and other objects. Silver sulfide Ag2S also forms silver whiskers when
silver electrical contacts are used in an atmosphere rich in hydrogen sulfide.
4 Ag + O2 + 2 H2S → 2 Ag2S + 2 H2O

Silver chloride (AgCl) is precipitated from solutions of silver nitrate in the presence of
chloride ions, and the other silver halides used in the manufacture of photographic emulsions
are made in the same way, using bromide or iodide salts. Silver chloride is used in glass
electrodes for pH testing and potentiometric measurement, and as a transparent cement for
glass. Silver iodide has been used in attempts to seed clouds to produce rain. [10] Silver halides
are highly insoluble in aqueous solutions and are used in gravimetric analytical methods.

Silver oxide (Ag 2O), produced when silver nitrate solutions are treated with a base, is used
as a positive electrode (anode) in watch batteries. Silver carbonate (Ag
2CO3) is precipitated when silver nitrate is treated with sodium carbonate (Na
2CO3).
2 AgNO3 + 2 OH− → Ag2O + H2O + 2 NO3−
2 AgNO3 + Na2CO3 → Ag2CO3 + 2 NaNO3

Silver fulminate (AgONC), a powerful, touch-sensitive explosive used in percussion caps, is

made by reaction of silver metal with nitric acid in the presence of ethanol (C 2H 5OH).
Other dangerously explosive silver compounds are silver azide (AgN 3), formed by reaction
of silver nitrate with sodium azide (NaN3), and silver acetylide, formed when silver reacts
with acetylene gas.
Latent images formed in silver halide crystals are developed by treatment with alkaline
solutions of reducing agents such as hydroquinone, metol (4-(methylamino)phenol sulfate) or
ascorbate, which reduce the exposed halide to silver metal. Alkaline solutions of silver nitrate
can be reduced to silver metal by reducing sugars such as glucose, and this reaction is used to
silver glass mirrors and the interior of glass Christmas ornaments. Silver halides are soluble
in solutions of sodium thiosulfate (Na 2S 2O 3) which is used as a photographic fixer, to
remove excess silver halide from photographic emulsions after image development.

Silver metal is attacked by strong oxidizers such as potassium permanganate (KMnO4) and
potassium dichromate (K 2Cr 2O 7), and in the presence of potassium bromide (KBr); these
compounds are used in photography to bleach silver images, converting them to silver halides
that can either be fixed with thiosulfate or redeveloped to intensify the original image. Silver
forms cyanide complexes (silver cyanide) that are soluble in water in the presence of an
excess of cyanide ions. Silver cyanide solutions are used in electroplating of silver.

Although silver normally has oxidation state +1 in compounds, other oxidation states are
known, such as +3 in AgF 3, produced by the reaction of elemental silver or silver fluoride
with krypton difluoride.

Silver artifacts primarily undergo three forms of deterioration. Silver sulfide tarnish is the
most common form of silver degradation. Fresh silver chloride is pale yellow colored,
becoming purplish on exposure to light and projects slightly from the surface of the artifact or
coin. The precipitation of copper in ancient silver can be used to date artifacts.

Applications

Many well-known uses of silver involve its precious metal properties, including currency,
decorative items, and mirrors. The contrast between its bright white color and other media
makes it very useful to the visual arts. By contrast, fine silver particles form the dense black
in photographs and in silverpoint drawings. It has also long been used to confer high
monetary value as objects (such as silver coins and investment bars) or make objects
symbolic of high social or political rank. Silver salts have been used since the Middle Ages to
produce a yellow or orange colors to stained glass, and more complex decorative color
reactions can be produced by incorporating silver metal in blown, kilnformed or torchworked
glass.