29 Facts About Silver

1.

Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag and atomic number 47.

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2.

Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal.

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3.

Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two vertical neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table: copper, and gold.

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4.

Silver is a relatively soft and extremely ductile and malleable transition metal, though it is slightly less malleable than gold.

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5.

Silver has a brilliant, white, metallic luster that can take a high polish, and which is so characteristic that the name of the metal itself has become a colour name.

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6.

Silver is rarely used for its electrical conductivity, due to its high cost, although an exception is in radio-frequency engineering, particularly at VHF and higher frequencies where silver plating improves electrical conductivity because those currents tend to flow on the surface of conductors rather than through the interior.

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7.

Silver metal is attacked by strong oxidizers such as potassium permanganate and potassium dichromate, and in the presence of potassium bromide .

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8.

Silver carbonate is used as a reagent in organic synthesis such as the Koenigs-Knorr reaction.

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9.

Silver complexes tend to be similar to those of its lighter homologue copper.

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10.

Silver complexes tend to be rare and very easily reduced to the more stable lower oxidation states, though they are slightly more stable than those of copper.

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11.

Silver was one of the seven metals of antiquity that were known to prehistoric humans and whose discovery is thus lost to history.

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12.

Silver mines were opened in Bohemia, Saxony, Erzgebirge, Alsace, the Lahn region, Siegerland, Silesia, Hungary, Norway, Steiermark, Salzburg, and the southern Black Forest.

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13.

Silver plays a certain role in mythology and has found various usage as a metaphor and in folklore.

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14.

Silver has more negative cultural meanings: the idiom thirty pieces of silver, referring to a reward for betrayal, references the bribe Judas Iscariot is said in the New Testament to have taken from Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to turn Jesus of Nazareth over to soldiers of the high priest Caiaphas.

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15.

Silver is usually found in nature combined with other metals, or in minerals that contain silver compounds, generally in the form of sulfides such as galena or cerussite .

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16.

Silver is taken up by plankton in the photic zone, remobilized with depth, and enriched in deep waters.

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17.

Silver is transported from the Atlantic to the other oceanic water masses.

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18.

Silver has increasing concentrations that follow the major oceanic conveyor belt that cycles water and nutrients from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic to the North Pacific.

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19.

Silver is not an easy metal for an organism to eliminate and elevated concentrations can cause death.

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20.

Silver coins are produced from cast rods or ingots, rolled to the correct thickness, heat-treated, and then used to cut blanks from.

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21.

Silver is used in some medical applications, such as urinary catheters and in endotracheal breathing tubes .

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22.

Silver ions interfere with enzymes in the bacteria that transport nutrients, form structures, and synthesise cell walls; these ions bond with the bacteria's genetic material.

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23.

Silver compounds are taken up by the body like mercury compounds, but lack the toxicity of the latter.

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24.

Silver diammine fluoride, the fluoride salt of a coordination complex with the formula [Ag2]F, is a topical medicament used to treat and prevent dental caries and relieve dentinal hypersensitivity.

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25.

Silver is very important in electronics for conductors and electrodes on account of its high electrical conductivity even when tarnished.

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26.

Silver-containing brazing alloys are used for brazing metallic materials, mostly cobalt, nickel, and copper-based alloys, tool steels, and precious metals.

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27.

Silver is useful in the manufacture of chemical equipment on account of its low chemical reactivity, high thermal conductivity, and being easily workable.

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28.

Silver is used for its antibacterial properties for water sanitisation, but the application of this is limited by limits on silver consumption.

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29.

Silver compounds have low toxicity compared to those of most other heavy metals, as they are poorly absorbed by the human body when ingested, and that which does get absorbed is rapidly converted to insoluble silver compounds or complexed by metallothionein.

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