Silver regions

The boundary between the black and silver region is horizontal except near the vertical border. This sudden change in colour from black to silver at a horizontal level indicates that the thickness of the film has altered rapidly. This region is indicated in Fig. 2.8 by the horizontal level at which the thin black film meets the draining film. This is an important characteristic that distinguishes the simple mobile film from the irregular mobile film. The rapid variation in the thickness of the film at the black-silver border occurs when the thickness of the film becomes comparable to the range of the van der Waals interaction between the water molecules in the film. 

Figure Bl.22.6. Raman spectra in the C-H stretching region from 2-butanol (left frame) and 2-butanethiol (right), each either as bulk liquid (top traces) or adsorbed on a rough silver electrode surface (bottom). An analysis of the relative intensities of the different vibrational modes led to tire proposed adsorption structures depicted in the corresponding panels [53], This example illustrates the usefiilness of Raman spectroscopy for the detennination of adsorption geometries, but also points to its main limitation, namely the need to use rough silver surfaces to achieve adequate signal-to-noise levels.

The attenuated total reflectance (ATR) technique is used commonly in the near-infrared for obtaining absorption spectra of thin Aims and opaque materials. The sample, of refractive index i, is placed in direct contact with a material which is transparent in the region of interest, such as thallium bromide/thallium iodide (known as KRS-5), silver chloride or germanium, of relatively high refractive index so that Then, as Figure 3.f8... 

Spectral Sensitization. Photographic silver haHde emulsions ate active with light only up to about 500 nm. However, theh sensitivity can be extended within the whole visible and neat-H spectral region up to about 1200—1300 nm. This is reached by the addition of deeply colored dyes that transfer excited electrons or excitation energy to the silver haHde. 

Mine Production of Silver. World production of silver by region is given in Table 3. Some 900,000 metric tons are estimated to have been mined since early times. By the year 1500 world mine production was about 50 t/yr. In 1992 world production exceeded 14,900 metric tons. EoUowing the breakup of tfie Soviet Union, previously undisclosed data showed that the USSR led wodd silver production during 1979—1980 at about 1550 metric tons. During the early 1990s the production in this region exceeded 2000 t/yr. 

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