Date

6-2011

Degree Name

BS in Materials Engineering

Department

Materials Engineering Department

Advisor(s)

Trevor Harding

Abstract

To determine if varying city water qualities from around the United States can support a developing “oxidation corrosion of silver thin films” method of creating aqueous ionic silver solutions for the anti-microbial treatment of healthcare linens, a test was devised holding all variables constant with the exception of water quality parameters. This corrosion style test was done in order to assess a pass/fail criteria of 25 ppb ionic silver concentration in the aqueous solutions which resulted from the corrosion of silver thin film coated substrates. Above 25 ppb being a pass, below 25 ppb being a fail. While varying the levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) and pH from 200 ppm - 500 ppm and 6 – 8 respectively, all water qualities produced ionic silver concentrations above 25 ppb. The trend observed was that increasing pH and decreasing TDS resulted in increasing ionic silver concentrations.