Cooling Liquid cooling...

I thought Magnesium could burn in pure nitrogen, but my last chemistry lesson was many, many years ago.

 

magnesium doesn't actually burn in the nitrogen. Still requires air. Water is actually the catalyst in that. It's undergoing a rather volatile and high-heat reaction to form magnesium oxide.

/* edit: for further clarity */
Pure magnesium is usually kept in inert gases, true, but if you dump it into pure nitrogen gas it won't necessarily react (without some other issue going on). Same with Lithium and other volatile metals.

 

Isn't nitrogen an inert gas?

 

Nope, if inert means it can't combine to form other moecules.

Inert gassses would mean Helium, Neon, Argon etc,

 

As stated, nope. Inerts are the right-most line of the periodic table, where either 2 (in the case of Helium) or 8 valence electrons are present, thus filling the atom's outermost shell.

The fundamental theory of atomic bonding is that all atoms want to reach some form of this (either full, empty, or half, which is slightly less desirable) outermost shell, as that is the most stable. Once at this point, some form of extreme distress is necessary to force the molecule to react, usually by making it lose an unbound electron or temporarily forcing an extra electron into the outer shell to facilitate a bond.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what inert is. I was just wondering (in the absence of a periodical table to look at) whether nitrogen was. Ah well, live and learn...

 

heh...sorry for the chemistry lesson, nexxo. didn't read who posted that! Maybe it will prove useful to someone who needs it. Nitrogen is in row 5.

 

No worries dude. I'm OK now I've had my morning cup of coffee...

 

cup? I go on like 3 to start with. Then again, that also tends to have me leave long chemistry lectures on bit-tech...hmmm, maybe I should cut down a bit? *eye twitches*

 

Yea but you've seen metaversa. He probably has a stainless steel coffee cup linked to a perculator with python hose clamps and tygon. So a cup in his sence may not be the same as your cup so to speak.

G'wan nexxo ... show us some pics

 

hahaha...I can see it now...probably the entire thing is rigged to a pci slot relay that turns on by software...the water then flows through a 1" ID hose directly from his W/C line heated by the dual opterons...

And it'll be the most blingin', shiniest cup of coffee ever had by man.

 

... lol i just looked in one of the random chemistry books that i have lying around the house and lol the first thing it said about nitrogen is that it is a noncombustable gas... i hate being flat out wrong... and no i was not thinking about no2.. o well

 

Not sure about stainless steel, i'm thinking polished aluminium myself

 

Hey man, aluminum causes memory loss due to accumulation in neurons. They found out that people who regularly use antacid tabs have serious problems because of the aluminum content in them. In real bad cases they have to inject a chelating agent into you to get the crap out.

So, minimize alu. foil usage when you cook, don't use alu. pots and pans, and wear a mask when you machine, sand, lathe, etc. alu., oh yeah, and stay the hell away from them antacid tabs.

Besides, polished alu doesn't stay polished for very long (mutter mutter, friggin aluminum oxide, mutter mutter).

-L6

 

I like the way you all think! Actually I was looking at the cabin of a steam locomotive today --one of those real big beasts from the 1900s. I was musing how it would make the basis for a perfect espresso machine: you shovel a few 500kg sacks of coffee beans from the coal tender into the hatch, and after pulling a lot of levers and boiling tons of water in that huge tank, it delivers the smoothest, strongest most concentrated cup of espresso in a tiny cup.

The wheels and rails are just for easy transport of the machine, by the way.

 

Technically, Argon isnt even inert since you can react it with Flourine under certain conditions.

 

Honestly, Argon is inert for all general purposes. I corrected risky above with "extreme duress is necessary," implying that it WILL react. However, GETTING argon (or other noble gases) to work with fluorine (or chlorine) is no small, cheap task.

There is no empirically inert atom, but the whole noble gas row is inert under normal conditions.