Because of the vagueness and peculiarities of shipping rules of Dangerous Goods materials, even in tiny quantities, to certain countries (e.g. Mexico, China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Russia to name a few), in order to reduce the costs of acquisition of silver paint in those markets, SPI Supplies has formulated a unique and novel "nonflammable" silver paint. We did this by using a diluent for the paint product that can contain some water, which increases the flash point to the level where it is just not considered flammable.
Like with most other things in life, there are trade offs and in the case of the SPI SafeShip™ Nonflammable Silver Paint, the drying time is increased. Just how much might be somewhat in the eyes of the beholder but by way of our own testing, although the drying time is increased, it is still within the limits of reasonability for an SEM lab application, as the drying time was increased by roughly two times (over our standard silver paint formulation).
The SPI SafeShip™ Nonflammable Silver Paint contains a higher percent silver solids, explaining in part the higher price per unit volume or weight relative to the regular SPI Silver Paint. The higher silver solids do result in a higher viscosity. It is possible, using common laboratory solvents, such as acetone, to dilute the suspension to a viscosity comparable to the standard paints. And in addition, the drying time can be speeded up this way as well.
All other properties of the dried paint are essentially the same, the only real difference is in the already discussed drying time.
Evaporation of the suspending sytem of this silver paint product could eventually result in a viscosity that is higher than when the paint was "new" and sufficiently high that it just can not be used in the intended manner for the mounting of SEM samples. The liquid suspending agent is a carefully balanced mixture of several different liquids in a specific ratio, and should the product have to be "thinned", only this specific ratio should be used. Hence we also offer with this product our specially formulated thinner. Do not use the "standard" silver paint thinners since there will be some incompatibilities between the water present and the solvents in the regular silver paint systems. For best results, shake the thinner bottle vigorously before adding thinner to SafeShip paint.
0.5 and 1 troy oz. bottles with brush applicator caps 60 ml bottles with standard screw on cap (no brush applicator)
We recommend that this special thinner be used for thinning down this new silver paint product.
