Silver Facts: Silver in Technology

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NASA's Magellan spacecraft, on its four year scientific mission, gave scientists their clearest look ever at the surface of Venus. 24,171 silver-coated quartz tiles protected the spacecraft from overheating under twice the solar radiation experienced orbiting the earth, plus the extra heat reflected by the Venusian clouds. The protection afforded by these tiles allowed the sophisticated electronics to work flawlessly, mapping the surface of the planet and its gravity fields with unprecedented detail.

Silver imparts special properties to aluminum alloys. The addition of silver to aluminum has provided the strongest cast aluminum alloy known, now used to advantage in aircraft such as the Air Force C17 transport and in the Army's Apache helicopter. A new silver-lithium-aluminum alloy is the strongest wrought aluminum alloy known. It has been used on several of the NASA space shuttle missions.

Silver's use as a gasket material in the chemical process is due to its chemical inactivity even under powerfully oxidizing conditions of the Space Shuttle engine.

Silver has also long been used to braze materials together. Silver's advantageous alloying and wetting properties are especially useful to hermetically seal together the components of electron power tubes such as the radar tubes now being installed at airports to warn pilots of deadly wind shear.

Silver has a unique affinity for oxygen. This property is critical to high temperature superconductors, which will revolutionize the transmission and storage of electrical power and the efficiency of motors and most other electrical equipment. In this application, silver not only prevents the loss of oxygen, but also acts as a source of nascent oxygen, essential to the operation of the superconductor. When silver is sintered with superconducting materials, the silver matrix itself displays superconducting properties.

Silver is also a powerful oxidative catalyst for the chemical process industry. The production of polyester fabrics, hydraulic fluids, engine antifreezes, and most flexible plastics, such as Mylar, is made more efficient by the use of silver.

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