99% Pure Alcohol in the pump

charles555

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
426
No, I haven't tried it. Has anyone ever tried a liquid cooled system filled with 99% Ethyl Alcohol? I would if I had a couple Socket A blocks...

I just had some on my hand in font of a heater and it evaporates so quickly (into the atmosphere, I know) it draws away heat extremely well.
 
it would work incredibly well if you could keep it from evaporating.

of course it would totally kick @$$ coolingwise if you wanted to build a custom phase-change (evaporative) cooling system.

then again... pure ammonia or freon would be much better for that, and ammonia is relatively easy to get... tho you want to take a long vacation if that stuff starts to leak... ammonia is very corrosive and you really don't want to breath it ;)

you need a bathtub in the basement to get pure ethylene (same thing as ethyl alcohol... which is moonshine) :rolleyes:
 
yeah it'd work, but no better than water. Water has a much higher thermal compacity and thermal transfer characteristics. Unless it's coupled with a phase change cooling system to cool the alcahol below freezing it's not worth it.
 
Forget the alcohol unless you could come up with some kind of closed system evaporative unit that recycles the alcohol back into usable coolant. You might want to check if your pumps and tubes will run on the stuff as it might break down some types of materials. Please keep in mind that alcohol is extremely flamable and could really let the magic smoke out of your box in a big kind of way...

Why not just do H20 and get an inline chiller to knock the coolant down to the 30's or so?
 
:eek: I feel like some ice cream and some Redline Watter Wetter in a liquid cooled setup...

Oh, and Biggie Size it please, Sanchez.
 
That's certainly true about it needing to evaporate.

So's the other tiny little important point mentioned above: KABOOM!!!!!!!
 
Alcohol doesn't exactly have high good heat transfer properties, or specific heat capacity.

I will 100% guarantee, that you will never find a liquid better suited for heat exchange than water is. Not in this galaxy :p
 
Sc4freak said:
I wonder how mercury would fare.

do you know how heavy and hazardous that would be? youd probobly very heavy steel pipes and waterblocks. not to mention a pump that is powerfull enough to pump mercury will be very large and loud.
 
alcohol in anything but a closed system would be incredibly stupid. It is like saying you wanna try evaporating gasoline to cool your comp.
 
A few things

Ethanol is not the same thing as Ethylene. Ethylene is a gas. Ethanol is a liquid at room temperature.

It would work rather poorly when compared to water. It has a much lower specific heat than water, about 50% less.

That said, ethanol is good for cleaning your system out, unlike isopropanol, which will destroy any acrylic in your system almost instantly.
 
iddqd said:
I will 100% guarantee, that you will never find a liquid better suited for heat exchange than water is. Not in this galaxy :p


Oh Reeeeeaaallly ...........

I hate ta tell ya , but ammonia is superior.Thats why it's used in refrigeration plants.

:p
 
BrainEater said:
Oh Reeeeeaaallly ...........

I hate ta tell ya , but ammonia is superior.Thats why it's used in refrigeration plants.

:p
WTF!? At room temperature, and atmospheric pressure, Ammonia (NH3) is a gas! The only practical applications of this chemical I've heard about are for fertilizers, explosives and plastics.

It will also readily liquify under pressure, so it can be used as a refrigirant... I beleive, they even mixed it with freon, prior the the ban at some point in time. However, that is phase change, not heat exchange we're talking about here.
 
Using ammonia in a standard impeller pump design is possible. It won't do *anything* but it's possible. As someone pointed out, NH3 is a gas at room temperature. NH4OH... if you want to try that, go ahead, but all you'll have is a smelly blob of goo sitting on your desk in a matter of time.

As far as the claim that nothing in the galaxy is better than water? Also not true. Several synthetics have superior properties. You have to pay out your ass for them, though.
 
That ties in with my statement. They aren't nearly as cost-effecient :D
 
aha

now you qualify your response...hehe...you did'nt say room temp/pressure.

Ammonia has been used for many years in refrigeration plants......and not in a phase change operation....strictly as a heat exchange liquid.Operation under greater than atmospheric pressure is not a big deal.

water has a specific heat capacity of 4.1 Kj/kg.K
Ammonia (liquid) has a specific heat capacity of 4.6-6.7 Kj/kg.K depending on temp.

:D
 
BrainEater said:
aha

now you qualify your response...hehe...you did'nt say room temp/pressure.

Ammonia has been used for many years in refrigeration plants......and not in a phase change operation....strictly as a heat exchange liquid.Operation under greater than atmospheric pressure is not a big deal.

water has a specific heat capacity of 4.1 Kj/kg.K
Ammonia (liquid) has a specific heat capacity of 4.6-6.7 Kj/kg.K depending on temp.

:D
Yes, but a gas won't enjoy the benefits of it.
 
yea thats true....

The 'easiest' liquid is definitely water.

The 'best' ie 'highest specific heat capacity' liquid would be liquid hydrogen.Followed by liquid helium......


srry to get picky. :rolleyes:
 
helium-4 would be pretty good... it's helium at 4 kelvins

(degrees kelvin) = (degrees celsius) - 273

helium at 4 kelvins has some VERY wierd properties... like, for instance, if you pour it into a test tube, it'll try to come back out, even if the tube is perfectly vertical.

you'd need one #@!! of a contraption to get it that cold tho... and you'd have to deal with the fact that your system would be superconducting at that temperature (pretty hard for it not to be... at *that* temperature) i'd say you'd want to use a set of ~1/4megawatt krypton-iodine lasers to cool that stuff off (yes, virginia, there is such a thing as laser cooling o_0 ) and you'd need something insulated pretty heavily against temperature intrusions... like tungsten pipes with carbon-carbon insulation.

good luck tho ;)
 
Ok, then.. why multiwalled carbon nanotubes? They are a superconductor of heat. Make a heatsink out of them, and make it go to Alaska, where it can be safely dissipated. K?
 
that is something that would actually be physically impossible at the moment.

you'd need to fix it so that quantum teleportation became practical... you'd want some affordable and small form of matter annhialation (sp?) at the very least... i can tell you right now that an atom smasher just ain't gonna do it... linear accelerators are usually about 2mi in diameter and cost more than the national debt.

further, multiwalled carbon nanotubes are a long ways away... they've got single-walled ones, and we'll see those being used within the next decade or so, but it's gonna be a bit before they figure out multiwalled nanotubes.

lastly... you'd be dumping this stuff in a frozen wasteland that nobody wants to be disturbed... not gonna happen. closest you could do would be antarctica, but then you have to account for plate shifting in the designs... and you'd be dumping it right in the middle of an ozone hole, which could have some nasty environmental effects, tanning rays aside.
 
starhawk said:
that is something that would actually be physically impossible at the moment.

you'd need to fix it so that quantum teleportation became practical... you'd want some affordable and small form of matter annhialation (sp?) at the very least... i can tell you right now that an atom smasher just ain't gonna do it... linear accelerators are usually about 2mi in diameter and cost more than the national debt.

further, multiwalled carbon nanotubes are a long ways away... they've got single-walled ones, and we'll see those being used within the next decade or so, but it's gonna be a bit before they figure out multiwalled nanotubes.

lastly... you'd be dumping this stuff in a frozen wasteland that nobody wants to be disturbed... not gonna happen. closest you could do would be antarctica, but then you have to account for plate shifting in the designs... and you'd be dumping it right in the middle of an ozone hole, which could have some nasty environmental effects, tanning rays aside.
Umm what? Carbon nanotubes. Ones with certain wall thinkness are superconductors of heat. You could build a thin pipe out of them (just 1 nanotube thick) that will lead somewhere away from your CPU core. The heat will then be dissipated elsewhere, as it will be transfered elsewhere with 100% effeciency. They've got multi-walled nanotubes of various sorts now. When you grow them under lab conditions, they tend to form a fuzzy ball (kinda like an inverted ingot).
 
iddqd said:
Alcohol doesn't exactly have high good heat transfer properties, or specific heat capacity.

I will 100% guarantee, that you will never find a liquid better suited for heat exchange than water is. Not in this galaxy :p

I might not 100% guarentee it, but i'd 99% guarentee it in a heart beat for several reasons
1. It may not transfer heat the absolute best, but it is right up there
2. you get water on your hands, who cares, liquid nitrogen or ammonia however....
3. it doesn't have noxious fumes
4. it is CHEAP
5. to quote my chemistry teacher "it isn't harmful, unless you try to breath it" i don't forsee anyone trying to inhale water
6. you can build a watercooling setup youself for cheap

Yes, i'm a n00b on the [H]ardforums, but i've been a geek for far longer
 
erm......
ok.since the original topic has already been blown to hell , allow me to explain the liquid Helium thing properly.

Helium 4 is NOT helium at 4 K.Helium 4 is Helium with 2 protons and 2 neutrons.it's different from the rarer 'Helium 3' that has 2 protons and 1 neutron.

Helium 4 boils at 4.1 K wheras Helium 3 boils at 3.1 K

Back to Helium 4......
Helium 4 has 2 distinct forms :helium I and helium II.Type I is the standard liquid.....If you cool type I helium past 2.17 K (the 'lambda' point) it becomes helium type II.

It is this type II Helium that exhibits superfluid properties.

As far as cooling with liquid helium goes : you don't need fancy nanotubes or momentum exchange cooling (lasers)......it's basic cryogenic cooling.

:D
 
hmm... odd... when i heard about it they were calling it helium-4.

i will now stick to the proper name of helium-4 type II.

but still... to get it *that* cold you're gonna need lasers or something.
 
that is incorrect.

iddqd said:
I will 100% guarantee, that you will never find a liquid better suited for heat exchange than water is. Not in this galaxy :p
 
Heat capacity isnt whats important in cooling. It's thermal conductivity thats important. Having both is nice of course, but thermal conductivity is more important.
 
In the criterea you gave. There are liquids better suited than water. Granted, they cost more, but you didn't make any mention of price.

iddqd said:
In what criteria?
 
Not sure if this has been asked, but what about engine coolant?
 
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