Getting silver nitrate to dissolve

[Bill Banks]

I'm making my first attempts at Van Dyke printing. One of the solutions requires 4gm of silver nitrate to be dissolved in 35ml purified water (I'm using battery water). Despite endless stirring while immersing the beaker in a warm water bath I still have a suspension of fine powder. Is the solution saturated at this dilution or am I missing something?

Bill

 

[dwross]

That's not even close to saturation. It sounds like you've got a contaminant in your silver n. Try filtering the solution through a good grade paper coffee filter.
Good luck. It's a lovely process.

 

[Herzeleid]

The battery water or purified water is not necessarily as clean as lab grade distilled water. I know battery waters which have organic content, and I have tested them for the initial wash of argyrotypes, in short they were not suitable. I do not doubt the purity of silver nitrate, even the lowest grade is good enough for alt processes. What you are seeing is precipitation of some silver forming compounds with the materials in water. Filter it and you are good to go with VDB.
Try distilled water next time.

 

[Loris Medici]

Yup, most probably it's a water problem. Try to source deionized + distilled water and use this for your silver nitrate solutions.