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Pure water for preparing Silver Nitrate solution

2004

Dear Sirs,

We now want to prepare a solution of Silver Nitrate for doing chlorine test. De-ionized water or distilled water should I use to prepare the Silver Nitrate solution?

Thank you for your great advice.

Chris To
Solder Paste Manufacturing - Hong Kong

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GM,

Either De ionised or Distilled water shall be used for preparing silver nitrate solution. Main criteria is, it should not form a white precipitate of silver chloride while adding silver nitrate solution to De ionised or distilled water.

Shankara Narayanan N
- Bangalore, Karnataka, India
2004

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When making a solution of Silver Nitrate, I have found that the only water to use is the purest Steam Distilled Water. I once used deionized water, and every batch came out slightly cloudy. An investigation uncovered the fact that deionization does NOT remove certain Bacteria from the water. These bacteria can trigger the silver nitrate and form a cloudy solution.

When we switched to Steam Distilled water, the problem never returned. Incidentally, be cautious of the label on the distilled water. The bad batch that I was using said, "Distilled Water - Prepared by DEIONIZATION." Honest!

The price of Silver Nitrate dictates that only the best quality water be used.

Ed Budman [dec]
- Pennsylvania
With deep sadness we advise that our good friend Ed passed away Nov. 24, 2018
2004