Electrolysis and High-Energy Processes: How Colloids Are Made

The best-known process is electrolysis: two electrodes of pure metal are immersed in distilled water, a voltage is applied, and the finest particles detach from the electrodes into the water. For silver this path works reasonably — around twenty minutes yields ten ppm. With gold, however, patience becomes torture: ten to twelve hours for less than one ppm is typical. High concentrations are practically unreachable this way.

And some elements refuse electrolysis entirely: metalloids like boron and silicon barely conduct current, carbon cannot be colloidized this way at all, high-melters like tantalum, iridium or molybdenum will not give up their particles, and platinum is considered nearly hopeless among electrolysers. Add the fundamental problem of mechanical abrasion: a large share of what dissolves is not colloidal but naked metal ions — unstable particles that flocculate on first contact with acids or salts, in silver’s case to silver chloride.

Where electrolysis ends, the high-energy processes begin. Their principle is fundamentally different: between high-purity electrodes, a plasma arc of several thousand volts ignites under water. The metal is not abraded but instantly vaporized — condensing in the cold, previously vortexed carrier water into the finest particles of sometimes only a few dozen atoms. The immense plasma energy charges the particles strongly and uniformly: they repel one another permanently and remain stably suspended.

This path is not new, by the way — only rarely mastered: as early as 1898 the chemist Georg Bredig dispersed metals into colloids with an electric arc under water. Our process continues this tradition, modified and developed further into a high-voltage plasma process working at around 3,500 °C.

The price is effort: such processes demand precise control of energy, temperature and time — every element has its own character and forgives no carelessness. The reward is concentrations and elements unavailable any other way: genuine ruby-red gold at 50 ppm, stable platinum, colloidal boron or tantalum. This is precisely the specialty of our workshop.

Regardless of the process: purest source material (99.99% and better), double-distilled water and no additives whatsoever. Whoever names these three things has nothing to hide. Whoever stays silent about them usually does.