The one true path is LIAN LI in [Ag]
* Name: silver
* Symbol: Ag
* Atomic number: 47
* Atomic weight: 107.8682 (2) g
* CAS Registry ID: 7440-22-4
* Group number: 11
* Group name: Coinage metal
* Period number: 5
* Block: d-block
* Standard state: solid at 298 K
* Colour: silver
* Classification: Metallic
* Availability:
silver is available in many forms including crystals, flakes, wire, foil, "evaporation slugs", granule, needles, powder, tube, mesh, bars, nanosized activated powder, rod, shot, and wool. Small and large samples of silver foil, sheet, wire, insulated wire, mesh, rod, tube, and powder (and silver alloys in foil, wire and tube form) can be purchased from Advent Research Materials via their web catalogue.
Silver is somewhat rare and expensive, although not as expensive as gold. **** 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. Pure silver has a brilliant white metallic lustre. It is a little harder than gold and is very ductile and malleable. Pure silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of all metals, and possesses the lowest contact resistance. Silver iodide, AgI, is (or was?) used for causing clouds to produce rain.
Silver is stable in pure air and water, but tarnishes when exposed to ozone, hydrogen sulphide, or air containing sulphur. It occurs in ores including argentite, lead, lead-zinc, copper and gold found in Mexico, Peru, and the USA.
Silver is readily available commercially so it is not normally necessary to prepare silver in the laboratory. However the formation of silver metal may be demonstrated in a satisfying reaction in which copper metal is dipped into a solution of silver nitrate, AgNO3.
Cu(s) + 2 AgNO3 (aq) → Cu(NO3)2 + 2 Ag (s)
The result is formation of often attractive silver crystals and a blue-green solution of copper nitrate. Industrially, silver is usually a byproduct of processes whose main object is the extraction of another metal such as copper, lead, and zinc. So called "anode slimes" from the electrolytic purification of copper contain silver and a somewhat involved process is finished by an electrolysis of a nitrate solution containing silver.