Cooling Mercury as a coolant?

Hey
I used the search and didn't find anything on it so I guess it hasn't been posted before. Has anyone every thought of using mercury for cooling a computer? Use all of the smal water cooling parts and then pump mercury through it. I know it would be hard to get that much mercury but would it work?
If anyone knows anything about how mercury can take on heat or anything about it post back.
-aaron

 

In short: Mercury would kill you, the pump wouldn't handle it, but it'd transfer heat nicely.

Don't do it

 

Mercury with a density of 13.6 is a fair bit more dense than lead, a water pump like the Eheim 1250 with a claimed max head of 6.6ft with water would lift it just 5.8" if the impeller didn't bend over backwards or the motor burn out.

I think it also forms an amalgam with copper. And any leak onto a hot surface, you die.

Hydrogen gas is pretty good as a coolant.

 

Mercury is bad. If you want to kill yourself with a liquid metal coolent, try sodium or bismuth. On the gas side, I think helium is more effiecient, and you are less likleu to blow yourself up.

 

If helium leaks you'll know by the strange voice distortion
Anyway, Helium has very small molecules. Smaller than oxygen, so it can pass through seemingly solid pipe walls. So eventualy it might all get out of the cooling system, overheating your CPU and other hot parts.

Anyway, there has to be a better coolant liquid... but what? Alcohol? Turpentine? Petrol? WD40? All flamable, so they are a bit dangerous. CPU's dont get hot enough to ignite it tho... but what about leaks and the following sparks from shortcircuits?
Maybe I'll take a look at my sister's Binas (dutch book about things like the periodic table of elements). Maybe I can find something that will work better...

 

Nanocoolers was developing a liquid metal that could be used to cool computers, but I haven't heard of anything in a while. It was a blend of a few metals IIRC. It wasn't flamable, had good thermal capacity and wasn't toxic. And, it was meant to be able to be pumped using an electromagnetic pump, which would be much quieter than a standard pump. http://www.techpowerup.com/?3105
I haven't heard anything more about it for ages, though

 

I guess, for processor cooling, water wins on points.

 

Yes I know Mercury is a highly poisonous gas, thast why I said it would be hard to obtain enough to cool a system, thats also why people stopped using it in thermometers and stuff.

McKaamos: There does have to be something better to cool with. Think of how much computers have advanced in the past 20 years. Companies are constantly comming up with tech to help run computers faster. Water cooling does hold it's own right now but there must be something better. Maybe Freon(spelling mistake?) which is found in your fridges to cool it. I know it costs a hell of a lot because my uncle deals with it. If they use it in fridges then it might work for computers.
-aaron

 

Refrigerants such as Freon are used in phase-change cooling systems such as freezers. Generally, these systems are deemed too complicated, expensive and unnecessarily effective at chilling things.

However, you will find that it's a rather esoteric form of cooling employed by overclockers looking to gain the highest clock speeds - check out the Extreme Cooling forum for a few examples

(incidentally, isn't Freon banned?)

 

Freon is a CFC, so anywhere that bans CFC's, bans Freon(from what I've briefly read). It's just a tradename, applies to quite a few different tetrachloromethanes, very good for getting passed locks, and yes, used in refridgerators.

 

whats the point of searching for a better coolant? if you want some serious extreme cooling.. use phase change

 

I think if you’re willing to play with mercury, you might as well just phase change instead... you’re far less likely to kill yourself.

 

Liquid metal as a coolant requires a special kind of pump... Coincidentally, a friend of mine was recently working on a project involving magnetohydrodynamic pumps. Don't use mercury. There are a few, less toxic alternatives out there.

 

Actually it was liquid gallium (well mostly, some indium and a bit of tin).

Also they abandoned the cooler because thier efficiency was not high enough to be competitive in todays hardware cooling market. They reasoned that although they could move the heat effectively, heat exchange still had to take place from metal to air and water cooling was a more cost effective way to do this.

NanoCoolers have now shifted focus to their "wafer" peltiers. There's no mention of liquid coolers on their site anymore either...

JCBeastie

 

Welcom to the world of the MSDS

I really want to introduce all of you who want to cool your computers with exotic mixes to the MSDS sheets. These (Material Safety Data Sheets) are required for all chemicals that a worker or end user would be exposed to in the United States.

Each sheet has all the information about a chemicals physical properties, as well as health, safety, storage, and hazard clean up.

Here is the MSDS for Hg
MSDS for Hg

Here is one exerpt for the above MSDS

10. Stability and Reactivity

Stability:
Stable under ordinary conditions of use and storage.
Hazardous Decomposition Products:
At high temperatures, vaporizes to form extremely toxic fumes.
Hazardous Polymerization:
Will not occur.
Incompatibilities:
Acetylenes, ammonia, ethylene oxide, chlorine dioxide, azides, metal oxides, methyl silane, lithium, rubidium, oxygen, strong oxidants, metal carbonyls.
Conditions to Avoid:
Heat, flames, ignition sources, metal surfaces and incompatible

From this we see the Hg is INcompatible with metal oxides. All Metal exposed to air will oxidize and react with Hg to form mercuric oxide or HgO.

This is the MSDS for HgO

From here we learn that HgO will kill you at a leathal dose of 1 gram.

If this does not diswade you then nothing will.


Too find the MSDS sheet for any chemical, type:: MSDS name of chem ::into the google search bar. ALL MSDS sheets follow the format of the two above by law

 

Freon is baned but is still avalible for use in some applications. the freon must be recycled and is a bitch to work with.

 

Its amazing how many people think they have come up with diferent cooling methods.

I have seen mercury as a sugestion at least 3 times in the past year.

If you really want to make a breack through in cooling, study whats out now and see where you can improve.

Mercury poisoning is a very bad thing it permanently damages the brain and kidneys.

Not to mention it causes phsychiatric problems. And some studies say cancer.

So its a give and take between sanity or a cpu that runs a fiew degrees cooler.

Take your pick.

 

One of the emperors of China thought mercury was the key to eternal life. He promptly died after dinking a bit though. Liquid metals are very alluring (it's shiny ), but mercury is one you should definately not screw around with (though floating coins on top of mercury is great fun. imagine what fun you can have standing on top of a pool of mercury). If I had a terminal illness I'd go and play with mercury.

Freon has been replaced with R134a and is no longer used in modern cooling loops. Phase change coolants such as Freon and R134a will cause blindness along with a whole mess of other health issues if one of your pipes or hoses blow or leak. I'd leave it to the HVAC professionals to build you a loop rather than building one yourself (unless you know what you're doing).

If you've got money to blow, build a server room with dedicated AC cooling and keep the room at a constant 60 deg F (server cases, raised platform, cool air forced up from underneath, the works). That'll keep your system cool though that electric bill will come to bite you in the backside later.

 

I'm not trying to make a break throught in cooling, I just wanted to know if it had been done or if it was do able. I have never even attempted to overclock a computer before so I have no use for something as extreme as these types of cooling.

Again, I have no use for doing such extreme cooling, just asking to see if it has been done.

You seem to know a bit about this, have you worked with this type of stuff before and used the Data Sheets?

-aaron

 

I think ppl used to use methanol for better cooling, but again its poisonous so not really worth it (life >>>>> low CPU temps).

Something you may find interesting is Fluorinert which is a non-electrical-conductive fluid and pretty decent for cooling. I think Nexxxo on this forum still uses Fluorinert (it give you piece of mind, at mind blowing cost).

Interesting reads would be on submerged PCs - a couple have been done in Fluorinert, one particular one in Fluorinertwith dry ice pellets which went pear shaped but my fave are vegetable oiled cooled PCs

Some links:

Submerge+ Dry ice - http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=222
Submerge + FI + Dry Ice and LN2 (good read) - http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/submersion2/day1.html
Prescott + Chips + Vegetable oil = chiip shop - http://www.markusleonhardt.de/en/oelbilder.html

There are a few out there but some to get you started