Mesosilver is the result of thousands of hours of research and development conducted at the Colloidal Science Laboratory, Inc.(CSL) over a period of several years. The prefix meso derives from a field of science involved with very small particles called mesoparticles.
Mesoparticles are defined to be particles that are larger than an atom and smaller than conventional small particles. The size range of mesoparticles is from less than 1 nanometer(nm) up to 10 nm in diameter. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. To put that in perspective, a single silver atom is about 0.288 nm in diameter. A human hair which is about 3 thousandths of inch in diameter would be equal to 73,000 nm in diameter. Mesosilver is produced by a totally new process that is unlike any that has been used to produce metal colloids previously. The process was designed and the equipment built in-house by the scientists who developed this new method of making colloids consisting of mesoparticles. The process has been named the mesoprocess.
Uncommonly small particles
Mesosilver consists of silver mesoparticles suspended in pure deionized
water. The actual size of the silver mesoparticles has been measured to
have a mean diameter of 0.65 nm and is estimated to contain about 9 silver
atoms. This is uncommonly small compared with the size of
particles found in commercially available colloidal silver products. Over
the years, CSL has measured the particle size from hundreds of samples
of colloidal silver. Of the products measured, the smallest particles typically
fall in the range of 10 to 100 nm, rarely smaller, and in some cases much
larger, with sizes ranging up to several hundred nm in diameter.
Why is particle size so important?
For a constant concentration of silver particles, the particle surface
area increases as the particle size decreases. In the chemical world, reactivity
increases with increasing surface area. Therefore, the effectiveness of
colloidal solutions increases with decreasing particle size as the particle
surface area increases. For this reason, particle surface area serves
as a metric for comparing different colloidal solutions. In colloidal silver
the increase in reactivity that derives from the increased particles surface
area translates directly to effectiveness of the colloid. Surface area
is expressed in square centimeters (cm2) per milli-liter
of colloidal solution, and is written as (cm2/mL).
The concentration of silver particles in Mesosilver is specified in parts-per-million(ppm) of particles, not total silver as other producers. The measurement of total silver includes particles and ions lumped together as a single measured value. When only the total silver is specified, the user has no way of knowing how much of the total silver is in particles and how much is ions. A 20 ppm Mesosilver colloid will contain a minimum of 15 ppm (16 ppm typical) of particles and have a total silver of about 20 ppm minimum. Other commercially available products that are labeled 20 ppm typically have between 0.5 to 2.5 ppm of particles, with the rest being silver ions. The higher concentration of particles translates to more particle surface area and more reactivity of the metallic silver.
Why is silver particle content important?
The benefits of colloidal silver in the human body are produced by the
nanometer sized metallic silver particles not the ions. In fact, many researchers
believe that silver ions cannot survive in the human for more than a brief
instant. One researcher, Dr. Meade, has estimated the half life of a silver
ion in the human body as being 7.8 seconds! This is because silver ions
readily combine with chloride ions to form silver chloride, which is an
insoluble silver compound. Chloride ions are the most prevalent anion in
the human body and are found in high concentration due to the sodium and
potassium chloride content of human serum.
Does that mean the ionic silver is 'bad'?
Not at all! While the highly reactive nature of silver ions prevents
them from surviving inside the human body due to the chloride ions, silver
ions are very effective if there are no chloride ions in the environment.
Ionic silver has the ultimate surface area since a silver ion is slightly
smaller than an atom of silver. The effectiveness of ionic silver is limited
to areas where there are no chloride ions present, which can mean many
places outside the human body. Ionic silver is effective when used topically
or when nebulized and inhaled. Of course, Mesosilver is also very effective
for these same applications due to the large surface area of the silver
mesoparticles. Inside the body, Mesosilver particles are not effected by
the chloride ions and will circulate in the bloodstream for maximum effectiveness
in killing pathogens.
Brown color of Mesosilver>
Unlike most colloidal silver products, Mesosilver is brown in color,
looking like dark iced tea. Previously, it was thought that such a brown
color indicated the presence of large silver particles, which is the case
for colloidal silver produced by methods other than the mesoprocess. It
is the very high concentration of mesosilver particles, not large particles
or contamination, that give Mesosilver its distinctive coloration. The
small size of the silver particles is confirmed by the use of a state-of-the-art
scientific instrument designed specifically for measuring such small particles
called a Photon Correlation Spectrometer(PCS). The PCS used during the
development of Mesosilver was manufactured by Malvern Instruments, Ltd.
of the United Kingdom, one of the foremost producers of such equipment
in the world. The particle size report
from the Malvern confirms the claimed size of 0.65 nm for Mesosilver.
Many producers of colloidal silver can only guess at the particle size in their products. Some try to measure the particles with a Transmission Electron Microscope(TEM) which is fraught with problems when trying to measure highly ionic solutions.
The magic combination of properties!
Mesosilver combines small particle size and high particle concentration,
the magic combination of properties, to produce a colloidal silver product
that has the highest particle surface area of any colloidal silver product
ever tested. See the graphical representation that compares the surface
area of Mesosilver to other products.