acohol instead of water

D

DREW10

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
90
could I use acohol instead of water for water cooling......I think I read somewhere that it is not conductive......but is it safe in the loop???

DREW
 
It's been discussed before and the general idea is no, don't use it.

I imagine it'll eat away at tubing, etc, after a while, but I'm no expert.

It may also not be as good at carrying the heat away as distilled water is.
 
actually I bet you could use it if you had tygon chemical lab tubing. Its 2 bucks a foot at mcmasters.com.
 
Krazy_Joe said:
actually I bet you could use it if you had tygon chemical lab tubing. Its 2 bucks a foot at mcmasters.com.
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yeah buit if it eats the blades on a fish tank pump whats the point
 
^^^

And it will slowly wear the metal in your block, eat away at any rubber component it touches, while not having any benefit over water...plus it would probably slowly dry over time, as it is alcohol.
 
Guys...

Read the other post.

It would burn through all the parts. It also would pick up thermal energy easier, but it can't hold as much as water. The only liquid that's better than water (That I know of) is mercury. Though I wouldn't reccomend it...unless you want brain damage.
 
Chicken Penni Pasta said:
It also would pick up thermal energy easier,
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Which physical property are you basing this on?
The only liquid that's better than water (That I know of) is mercury.
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Everyone likes to say this, but again, based on what properties?
 
HeThatKnows said:
Which physical property are you basing this on?
Everyone likes to say this, but again, based on what properties?
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Mercury, being a METAL, has INCREDIBLY higher thermal transfer abilities than water. However the fact that it is very HEAVY makes it a chore to pump around, not to mention it can kill you or make your brain mushy over time. Very poisonous to life as you know it.


Mercury is just a metal that happpens to be melted at the temperatures humans survive at.
 
TheRapture said:
Mercury, being a METAL, has INCREDIBLY higher thermal transfer abilities than water. However the fact that it is very HEAVY makes it a chore to pump around, not to mention it can kill you or make your brain mushy over time. Very poisonous to life as you know it.


Mercury is just a metal that happpens to be melted at the temperatures humans survive at.
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I think HeThatKnows is asking, "What are "thermal transfer abilities"?". Thermal conductivity is not the only important property when considering a fluid cooling loop.
 
TheRapture said:
Mercury, being a METAL, has INCREDIBLY higher thermal transfer abilities
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Metal speaks to how it conducts electricity, and doesn't imply anything about its thermal properties. If you believe all metals have good thermal properties, try using a lead heatsink.

Do any of the people who love mercury know the relevant properties/numbers?
 
id make a alcohol bong cooler, but im too afraid that i would wake up one morning at the foot of it with a massive headache, and find my processor / pump died from lack of coolant

( actually i think that the ability to conduct heat well is one property of a metal)
 
I remember a fellow in here who flamed one of these posts ... I recall him talking about water was used to cool nuclear reactors so it should be good enough for PC cooling. Either way, I'd say water is pretty good, messing with other stuff is well ... just messy.
 
HeThatKnows said:
Metal speaks to how it conducts electricity, and doesn't imply anything about its thermal properties. If you believe all metals have good thermal properties, try using a lead heatsink.

Do any of the people who love mercury know the relevant properties/numbers?
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Even lead conducts heat better than water...a simple Google seach yields:


Water --->0.58

Mercury--->8

Lead---->35.5

Copper--->400

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/24_429.html

Now, go eat some crow and stop being such an ass...
 
zer0signal667 said:
I think HeThatKnows is asking, "What are "thermal transfer abilities"?". Thermal conductivity is not the only important property when considering a fluid cooling loop.
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Also, "thermal conductivity" IS "thermal transfer ability"....they are the same thing when talking about metals...

conduct heat - to move from one place to the other
transfer heat - to move from one place to the other
 
anybody know where I can buy mass quantities of mercury MUHAHAHAHAHA ILL KILL MYSELF THEN EVERYBODY IN THE HOUSE(but Ill also have a cooler CPU :D )

DREW
 
TheRapture said:
"thermal conductivity" IS "thermal transfer ability"....they are the same thing when talking about metals.
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For a solid, yes. But mercury and alcohol are liquids, and heat transfer in pumped liquids also depends on....? Threre a few factors -- I'll get you started by tossing out specific heat.
Now, go eat some crow and stop being such an ass...
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I'll admit you did some amazing googling, but it ain't over yet. :D There are already enough people parroting the same misinformation from forum to forum. I'm hoping to goad at least one person into thinking about how it works (or doesn't). :cool:
 
I never tried to get into pumping specifics, etc. I was only talking about pure thermal conductivity of metals vs. water, etc., in general. The fact that mercury is melted at our normal room temps does nothing to change the fact that is conducts heat better than water. Sorry if I got touchy, it's too damn early in the morning and my head is splitting from a non-stop sinus headache. going to the doc to see WTF is going on in my head... :( :p
 
Ragweed season, I''ve had a low grade sinus headache for the last two week. I sympathize with a bad one.

In any event, the mercury or alcohol or water isn't just sitting there conducting heat. Heated fluid is actively being replaced with cooler fluid. Think about water, with a thermal conductivity of 1/650 that of copper...if only conduction mattered, waterblocks would get their asses handed to 'em by copper heatsinks (or even lead heatsinks :) )
 
I don't know the numbers for mercury, or whatever else we're talking about, off hand... but specific heat is important because that would tell us how much total heat energy all of the liquid in your pipes and tanks could hold. For instance, water can hold a hell of a lot more energy per unit of mass than copper or mercury... Thermal conductivity matters because that tells us how fast the liquid can take in energy from the cpu/whatever. Mercury conducts heat much better than water.

Because water and mercury are both good at one but not the other, i doubt the difference is as huge as some would like it to be. Plus, anything other than water is hard to pump and store safely... so it would probably be best to not try it...
 
Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think to take advantage of mercury's high conductivity it would have to be pumped much faster. It can take energy very quickly, but it would also rise in temperature to that of the 'water' block extremely quickly, so it would have to be replaced by cooler mercury faster than water would. Waters strength is that it can be pumped relativly slowly because of its huge heat capacity. Getting the proper equipment to handle and pump mercury would probably be prohibitivly expensive.
 
you'd probably die a slow death as some of the mercury evaporated through the tubing over time.
your computer cooling system would eventually be the cause of your poisonous death :p
 
g3no said:
id make a alcohol bong cooler, but im too afraid that i would wake up one morning at the foot of it with a massive headache, and find my processor / pump died from lack of coolant

( actually i think that the ability to conduct heat well is one property of a metal)
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Mwahahahaha! MOONSHINE EVAP TOWER! The ultimate hangover cure! Keep it by your night table, wake up just as whacked as when you crawled in!


Quit mentioning mercury, it just makes HeThatKnows (grammar?) troll for the next n00b with an ego > brain. Mercury sucks. Yes, it's a silver liquid. No, you can't possibly consider using at as a coolant for anything. Period. In every situation that mercury could be considered as a coolant, water beats it hands down. Nobody's going to make a mercury cooler simply because of the obvious reasons. Yes, visual appeal is a huge part of watercooling. Air cooling. Computers in general. Nobody is going to make a mercury system to show off, it's not even worth the comments from photos you'd post. Yeah, sweet silver coolant running through your hoses, do you still have the capacity to type? Go buy a solid silver waterblock with Chrome accents and a dozen CCFL's. Put spinner rims on your case. Either quit posting about mercury, or go do it. Didn't think so.

Back to the positive.

I'm willing to try to build the moonshine evap tower. I think it will be an excellent experiment as to the effectiveness of alcohol as a coolant when using an evaporative method, as well as a test to see whether I can remain drunk for more than twenty-four hours, consecutively, without having to stay awake, like I did the first time I tried that. Let me go find my six-foot bong tower and credit card to buy all that booze and I'll get back to you as soon as I'm out of the emergency room.

Like the name says, I fix my toys the fast way.
 
SledgeMakeGood said:
Quit mentioning mercury, it just makes HeThatKnows (grammar?) troll for the next n00b with an ego > brain.
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Actually, I was willing to going into the whole the thermal-conductivity/specific-heat/viscosity thing and explain how mercury fell short. But no one bit, no one was willing to take the first step and look up the numbers. Eh.

For what it's worth, an ethanol bong (the least poisonous) would use a hair under 13 liters a day to cool a continuous 100 watt load. :cool:

Today's grammar: appositives
 
Trying to get mercury will get u in troubles with the Department of Homeland Security, 'cause mercury is one of the well-known components for making nuclear devices :D
 
DREW10 said:
anybody know where I can buy mass quantities of mercury MUHAHAHAHAHA ILL KILL MYSELF THEN EVERYBODY IN THE HOUSE(but Ill also have a cooler CPU :D )

DREW
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just be sure not to use any Aluminium (anodized or not) in your loop. The mercury would eat through it (by progressive Amalgamization) within hours.
 
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