Cooling Fluorinert for liquid cooling

Most of you will by now be familiar with 3M Fluorinert, a totally inert liquid that looks and behaves like water and has the same thermal transfer properties, but does not conduct electricity or cause corrosion or in fact react with anything at all. Cray uses it to cool supercomputers, and Amari Computers has started to use it in its watercooled midi-tower PCs as a maintenance, corrosion and short-circuit worry-free solution (literally). They even plan to sell it by the 500ml bottle (enough for a standard watercooling setup), bless them. For £54,-- ($97,--)

OK, this is a small outlay for what essentially is maintenance and worry-free liquid cooling (although you could argue: where's the fun in that?.. ), but I wondered if there were other, cheaper sources.

Enter TMC Industries, Inc. This is a company that reclaims chemical compounds, and refines them back to "good as new" purity before selling them. One of the chemicals they reclaim is Fluorinert (PF5080 --the same stuff Amari uses). So I asked them how much they sell it for:

That is $16,-- for about 500ml. In English: about £8,82

OK, there's a $100,-- minimum spend, but that gets you enough for about 6 WC rigs? Perhaps a group buying opportunity here...

 

I would be in for that.

Does it really work as well as water and does it flow fine through pumps?

 

It has the same viscosity as water. It also looks like water.

Not convinced? Go :here:.

If it's good enough for a Cray, it's good enough for your PC!

 

Do you know what temp this stuff freezes at?

I'm hope'n it will run well below 0c.

 

It will stay liquid in temperatures down to -90 degrees C. I remember a site where they cooled a PC by suspending it in a bath of Fluorinert, which in turn was chilled via a heat exchanger submerged in a bath of liquid nitrogen. It froze a bit then.

Edit: the site was :here:. Seems dead now...

 

I dont even think it froze, I think it just increased in viscosity, but -90 is a bit cool.

 

Nexxo,
You can mark me down for a litre or two of the good stuff!

Seriously though, I am definately interested, especially at that price.
Any idea if you'd have problems shipping it from the U.S. (customs etc.)?

Also, does anyone know any more about the other properties of this stuff?
I know it's supposed to be completely inert, but it may have a
recommended lifespan or something.....

Olly

 

Im tempted but i have visions of £40 worth of Fluorinert spilling out of my w/c system whenever i need to drain it

+

i would need about 2L not 500ml

 

That's the beauty of Fluorinert. You don't have to drain it. Ever!

Some confusion appears to exist in several threads as to the difference between Perfluoroctane (CF-5080) and 3M Fluorinert a.k.a. Perfluorcarbon (PF-74). I asked TCM Industries about the difference between the two, as I have been asking them about CF-5080:

Solves that mystery then.

 

Not untill i need to change something (more or less every couple of weeks) . I see what your saying tho, think it would work well in a closed system but its not for me

 

How about designing hot-swapable waterblocks? Just unplug one and slap a new one in place on the fly!

Ah, well, a guy can dream...

 

Of course, then Starbuck3733T finds me :this: link... It shows that although Fluorinert conducts heat as well as water, it does not absorb nearly as much heat... thus water remains by far the coolant of choice. Ah, well, back to distilled water and Zerex Racing.

 

Well, it's specific heat capacity is less (about half that of water IIRC) so yes, 1kg of water will absorb twice as much energy in heating up by a given temperature as fluorinert will. However, the correlory of this is that fluorinert will cool down by a larger amount when you remove a given quantity of energy from it (in your rad) so it isn't all bad. Additionally, spec heat capacity is measured in W/kg.K not W/m^3.K so, since (again IIRC) fluorinert is considerably heavier than the same volume of water, the same flow rate will result in a greater mass of fluorinert passing through your blocks. Therefore the fact that its spec heat capacity is less than that of water is misleading

 

So does 98% sulphuric acid, but i aint gonna make my tea with it am i?

Nexxo has it right - specific heat capacity is much lower. Also, you have to get the right one otherwise itll either be too viscous for your pump or boil too quickly cause the vapour pressure is lower than water.

/Sarcastic mode

Wow another PFC thread, how will i cope?

 

Oh well, it was a nice idea while it lasted ......

 

Can the sarcasm dude. The point of this thread was to identify a cheap source of Fluorinert, not to expand on its merits, which has been done elsewhere --I read them. (although no-one mentioned specific heat capacity!). In any case:

mclean007 is right. Thinking more about it I was also reasoning: heats up faster, but cools down faster too. I know Fluorinert is indeed more dense so mclean's point is a good one: that compensates for its lesser capacity. Having ruminated over it, it is definitely still an option I want to pursue further.

/Sarcastic mode

Another PFC thread that wasn't read through properly -- how will I cope?

(i.e. we had already identified the right one ).

 

Given the choice I would rather put PF 5080 into my machine then have water.

So, if anyone does decide to ship some in remember me. Else i will just have to wait until Amari computers will sell me some.

 

hey.. didn't you say its not conducting electricity. that means you can put 2 wires in there and nothing would happen?

so why don't you all buy 10l and fill the hole computer with it..
or at least make it flue directly over the chip?

i'm not using w/c but would that bring better temps?


or you could fill a psu with it.. that would make it very easy to cool a psu not with air..

 

there are several people on the 2cpu.com forums who do this regularily with mineral oil, and are quite happy with the completely silent results.

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32859