Can silver cutlery be cleaned in an artisan way ? On this there are a large number of remedies, most of them useless. But there are two effective ways to do it.
The first is to use hydrogen peroxide . Silver blackens because it has oxidized and combined with sulfur: this element, abundant in eggs, binds to silver to form an insoluble compound, silver sulfide. Hydrogen peroxide converts sulfur to silver sulfate, which is soluble . Of course, as this cleaning carries part of it, we can only use it with solid silver cutlery. I mean, the good one.
If we have plated cutlery we can use another method, based on the same principle that makes the batteries work. To do this, we line the bucket with aluminum foil, placing the matte surface down. We add hot water and a tablespoon of salt and there we submerge the blackened cutlery . We have just built a battery made up of a conductive solution (since salt makes water conductive to electricity), aluminum, and silver. In this environment the following electrochemical reaction occurs: aluminum loses electrons, which are captured by the silver sulfide on the surface of the cutlery. This process regenerates the metallic silver while the sulfur goes into solution and migrates to the aluminum foil to form aluminum sulfide. By the way, the hotter the water, the faster we can clean it.
In the same way, with horse chestnuts (eye! Indian) you can make an excellent soap for washing , because these fruits have saponins (from the Latin sapo , soap). The reason for its name is clear. But not only chestnuts possess them: also the Quillaja saponaria or Quillay tree, common in South America, or the Saponaria officianis (soap flower), a plant that grows on the slopes and banks of central Europe.
