a ha, I figured out why maybe they don't use silver oxide. It decomposes into silver at 300C.
![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif)
I figured it would be like copper oxide, without looking at the measured values
Well, maybe it makes some kind of silver glass foam material if it decomposes during sintering. very interesting
But it does melt at a low temperature which gave me a idea, infiltration resistors. If you put a frit on a substrate and soak it in liquid oxide. Maybe it would infuse and solidify to form a resistor. The easiest way to find out would be to get frit blocks and see if it wicks up in a pool of molten oxide. Maybe you can make a big resistor with that technique too. Its not exactly a shake and bake operation but it does make me wonder
It is at 570C, it looks grey still. It does not look like the silver trace near it. I wonder how this will play out when its done. I have also been reheating the initial silver/pall trace many times now to see what thermal cycling might do to the deposit, also to save on substrates. It does not look white like the silver did after sintering either.
Well the silver oxide got to 820. I turned it off. It looks different then the trace nearby, which looks rather white at this temperature (palladium-silver). I wonder what will turn out of this experiment.
The sample has a ability to burn human skin even when temperature is reduced to 300C after a short cooling period. The trace is a grey color, unsure if its because of the extra glass content or the silver oxide has this property even if it supposedly decomposed into silver.
When scraped, metalic silver is exposed. When measured, it has a similar conductivity to the silver palladium trace.
It appears if you for some reason have silver oxide, the result will be very similar *but a little crappy looking* compared to using fine silver powder. The resistance is approx 5% higher for a wider trace then the silver palladium one, I suspect mainly due to the increased glass content (15% or so).
So now you know, AgO is a usable feedstock if Ag is not available. It looks a bit bumpy and blistered. It is solderable but inferior. It would be interesting to know what a 3% glass Ag2O mix would do. Always nice to be able to use different reagents for the same process.
![Tongue :P](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/tongue.gif)
If the process did work, I think it would have a similar conductivity to copper metal glass traces, which might be worth a experiment too.
Anyway, it was fun and I think it was worth a shot despite realizing that it would decompose right after I mixed it up.
Also further notes
1) porcelain mini bowls (like a sample plate) make for excellent mixing vessels for powder/PVA mixtures
2) small silicone spatula is great for mixing an applying it, but you need a stiff metal for the 'printing' part of screen printing, the silicone deforms and removes it from the cavity with any pressure applied
If anyone has more ideas, preferably non toxic, for resistors, I might try them out, but no lead, cadmium, or things that might otherwise foul my kiln. The price of the proper metals for resistors is very high that it seems that I could run a dozen or more cheap experiments and still be at a cost.
So far research results say
1) silver is good
2) silver oxide does not work because it decomposes, but you can seemingly make a usable PC trace with it if you desire with a similar end appearance to silver metal. Silver oxide is a dodgy looking material (looks like worthless slag dust)
3) ITO does not work with glaze, it might work if you mess around with frits
I am curious about powder made from various brazing rods used for sintering, I have a bunch of different rod types. Not sure how to powder them without getting too much grit. I was hoping maybe it floats on water or something for purifying the resulting powders. It should not be too hard to get 0.1 grams of whatever metal on sand paper.
I wonder how these traces react to current surges