questions about liquid in watercooling system

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sanjosebmx

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Apr 29, 2003
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People say to use distilled water all of the time but wouldnt this distilled water become undistilled when it comes in contact with the copper in the rad or block? And i could be wrong but wouldnt oxidation occur while there is still a small amount of air in the system? To avoid these problems(if they exist) couldnt you use some type of radiator fluid, i dont think algea would grow in there either.
 
Water alone does not have any acidic or basic properties. (pure distilled water will not conduct electricity) It's when water picks up other chemicals that it becomes corrosive. Yes, water will probably absorb some of the copper its exposed to, but it is a lot less than tap water with all the additives it contains. Also, using antifreeze will keep the alge from growing, lubricate the pump and contains anti-corrosion additives. The biggest problem with corrosion comes from galvonic corrosion which is when 2 dissimilar metals are used together. They have different electrical properties and cause electrons to move between them which ultimately leads to corrosion. Again, antifreeze can help prevent this. Hope this answers some of your questions.
 
I think you are confusing distilled with deionized.
Distilled just means it's nothing but H2O.
Deionized means all the ions, H2Os with too little or too many electrons, have been removed.
This is the one that will rip apart metals.


And there should only be air in the top of a reservoir of fill tube.
If your setup is mixing air into the water you not only risk oxidization, but cavitation in the pump and reduced cooling.
Cavitation occurs when air in the water forms tiny bubbles at the edges of the pumps blades.
When those bubbles pop, it's in such a confined space that the force slowly weakens the blades until something bad happens.


Radiator fluid
Some people do put small amounts of antifreeze in the water.
It lessens bilogical growth, deters galvanic corrosion and includes water wetter.
 
Yeah, I started thinking about that after posting. Distilled water has chemicals removed but not minerals. And your absolutely right, deionized water will rip electrons from metal pretty quickly. It's the chemicals in normal tap water that do the corrosive damage and distilled water has them removed. Thanks for the correction. :)
 
One other note:

De-Ionized water is rather expensive too. I have yet to see a gallon of De-I that costs less than 8x the cost of distilled water.
 
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