Cooling Mercury as a coolant?

I saw this show on Discovery channel a while back about dry water. I'm not sure what the scientific name was, or if was being sold, but they showed pictures of them dipping laptops and lcd's in this dry water and them still working. It was really amazing how it worked. I think if you wanted to find something better than water this might work because it doesn't get anything wet, not even a paper back novel.

I think this would be a break through because it would get rid of any chance of your comps guts from frying.
-aaron

 

Another interesting note: Magnetohydrodynamic pumps can move almost any conductive liquid, meaning anything from non-distilled water to liquid metal can be driven without moving parts. I've read that the system creates gas bubbles, when used with seawater for ship propulsion, though.

 

The stuff you are referring to is called "Fluorinert" (one of the perfluorcabon family). It looks like water, behaves (largely) like water but does not react with anything. As such it does not cause corrosion, does not conduct electricity and does not allow bacterial growth. For these reasons it is used in computer liquid cooling applications, usually in supercomputer mainframes.

It is expensive and hard to obtain, so less often used in PC watercooling. However I have it in my system.

 

And by sheer coincidence, some of the hospital equipment is making weird gurgling noises and dripping rusty water...

 

Personally, I'd rather have my loop leak water than Fluorinert.

Why?

Because I could replace the hardware for less than the cost of replacing the Fluorinert

Great stuff if you can get it though

 

Yah silentphoenix mentioned it up above, I was sure if that was the thing I saw, sorry silentphoenix.

But yah, it would be really sweet to have in your computer because it wouldn't fry anything, but as ElThomsono said if you loose some from a leak you'll be dishing out big money to get more. Hopefully a company will see how great this could be for the computer world and mass produce it and make the price drop radically. They would make a nice profit.
-aaron

 

Let’s say you get your hands on mercury. You handle it properly, ware gloves, a mask, a bunny suit, blah, blah, blah… you finally put it inside of your computer… did you think of how it is going to behave inside of the system? Mercury expands a great deal with very minor temperature changes. That is why it’s used inside the thermometers. You have no idea what it is going to do inside the box with CPU, video card, hard drives and all that other junk it has to come in contact with. They all generate their own temperatures, and calculating diameters of pipes would be close to impossible.
And where are you going to get so much mercury anyway? I’m sure you would and up on a lovely date with guys from CIA. And they probably would try to get into your pants after it for a cavity search.
Nah. Doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

 

The total cost of the Fluorinert in my system is about £80,--. The total cost of my hardware is about, ooh... a thousand pounds? You do the maths.

But it is not only its non-conductive quality that makes it useful. It is also non-corrosive, and does not allow any bacterial growth. It is fill & forget -- a totally maintenance-free loop that never needs cleaning or refilling.

Actually, TMC industries in the US reclaims Fluorinert to a very high degree of purity, and at a very reasonable price. Sometimes batches also pop up on eBay at very cheap prices.

 

Never realised it was that cheap - i thought it would have been about £200! Did you order this from TMC industries?

 

Fluid XP is an alternitve and is cheaper. But nothing beets Fluorinert. the name says it all its innert!

 

Nope, from Armari Computers. They used to sell it but supply issues (manufacturer underwent a major refit) caused them to discontinue. Acota Ltd. sells various perfluorcarbons in the UK.

My system only takes about 650ml, that is why it comes out so cheap. If you have a bigger loop with a bigger rad, you are looking closer to 1 litre --about £150,--

 

Incorrect. There is actually a "dry water" that is not Fluorinert. I think it was called "Sapphire" or something along that. It's literally a dry water because it acts like a dry water. You don't get wet with the stuff. People were dipping books in it and taking them out and flipping the pages as if nothing just happened.

Probably has an extremely high surface tension, in which case it would make horrible cooling fluid.

There are also water drying powders that have been around for years. You sprinkle some on top of the water, dip you hand in, and your hand comes out completely dry, but very powdery.

 

anyone who's been introduced to a work environment under the watchful eye of OSHA in the US will know what an MSDS is...

stands for material safety data sheet, and is full of useful do's and don'ts...

for instance, when using acetylene gas DON'T use brass with more than 65% copper as acetylene reacts with copper oxides...

same goes for carbon monoxide

also little bit of historical useless knowledge, the phrase "mad as a hatter" comes from around the 18th or 19th century when hatters in england used mercury to help with the linings of hats... over exposure caused mental issues

 

I recall that stuff-- used as a fire retardant with delicate equipment that should not be exposed to moisture/water. It does indeed have a very high surface tension and would not work as a coolant.

 

Go with the Flourinert, the dry water would probably cause pumping problems and would be more expensive.

By the way, MSDS aren't too hard to find, if you feel interested in looking up info on something. Most people who work as engineers, welders, truck drivers, etc. get them in case they're handling hazardous materials. I've got a book of MSDS info sitting in my basement. Google it or check a bookstore. They'll most likely have it.

 

Also, I think the powder stuff was used to clean up oil spills in the ocean. It made the oil slicks into stickly globs, and they had these machines with rolling pins that pulled the globs up onto them (think the reverse of what your cat does to a fresh roll of toilet paper). Pretty interesting stuff. Of course the oil I think was no longer useable afterwards. I think now they just use oil eating bacteria.

Also, anyone interested in the actual properties of materials can just look them up in Matweb.com. I'm not sure if they have MSDS sheets though, but you can probably find them sooner or later by poking around.

 

some sites with free MSDS sheets are

www.MSDS.com
www.msdssearch.com
google MSDS for XXXXX

 

Why not just put the PC in a frezer and mod that?

 

Condensation + PC = Me luaghing at you

 

it can be done but you need to de-humidify the air in the freezer. there are a number of ways to do it, some good some bad, all a pain in the ass. one idea was to put a A/C in there to dry the air out., run a de-humidifyer, all sorts of fun stuff. But by that time you might as well run a phase change or a chiller set up because its going to do the smae thing for you.