Mercury Instead of water

[JML]

I was wondering how a mercury run system would be? And yes I know mercury is dangerous. Lets say you had a a very strong pump, such as a Mag Drive 24 or a Little Giant TE7MD-HC ( Both of which do over 2000gph @ 0' head), since this stuff is thicker than water (would it be possible to dilute it a bit with something else?). Would there be any improvement? Am I so far off its not even funny? Opinions/Comments-

[whiskeyinajar]

Well I dont think water and mercury will mix because of the different densities like oil and water dont mix And will it effect the copper waterblock and radiator? Is it conductive? just some things to keep in mind but it just might work who knows.

[Hoot]

You can't dilute Mercury, but why would you want to. It has such greater thermal conductivity than water, just accept a slower flow rate. I imagine there are pumps that deliver low flow rates at high lift. That's what you need. I would also imagine you want to minimize any lift wherever possible in the flow path in the case. This would probably be a system where you would not want a reservoir. Sure Mercury is conductive and toxic. That just means you have to use a good, "bullet proof", design technique. If you have ever seen a Wave Solder Machine in action, you can see an example of a pump with no moving parts. Molten solder is propelled through the system by inducing a current in it (since its conductive) with a electromagnetic coil. I'd bet you can do the same with Mercury, but what a design challenge.
All told, a closed loop, liquid cooling system using Mercury could be the ultimate solution, but requires some research and meticulous build practices. See the kind of input you get from someone who can't sleep at 03:30 in the morning. :D

Hoot

[JML]

lol, see the kind of posting you get from someone that can't sleep at 5:00 in the morning? So your saying the mercury could be moved with electric current? But then wouldn't it fry the processor when it went into the copper waterblock?

[Hoot]

No electric current does not flow through the stream of the Mercury. If it did, Wave soldering would fry the components on the board you were soldering. It's a magnetic flux that you are inducing. Most people only associate magnetic properties with ferous materials, but you can magnetize non-ferous, electrically conductive materials with a field generated by an AC current. This kind of propulsion is referred to as Magnetic Drive, not to be confused with the MAG Drive brand of water pumps.

Hoot

[asmodean]

Now that's a good idea, once again from the inventor of the "Hoot Chute" :)

I don't think the low flowrate would that bad, as mercury has much higher thermal conductivity. If it had the same flowrate as we need in water cooling, it wouldn't absorb as much heat as with a lower flowrate, correct?

Also, I think that ALL the tubings (piping, more likely...) would need to be soldered to be supertight, as any leaks would have horrendous side-effects.
It's very hard to try and collect "free" mercury... Just break a mercury-based temperature meter and you'll see: it moves by itself...

I couldn't find ANY articles describing the use of mercury in cooling a CPU. But I might have been too "lazy", as there was >10k hits.

[AMDGuy]

Another thing to consider, would the mercury react with copper or aluminum? If so that would be some dangerous galvanic corosion.

[Hoot]

It may plate into CU. Don't know about AL.

Hoot

[William]

mercury I pretty positive would not react, well mercury essentially doesn't react but what it does do is immagalmate metals such as gold and platinum. I don't think this happens with the lighter metals such as copper though. I had thought about this and one, you need one kick @$$ pump that is actually rated to pump mercury(A pound of mercury is like 1 or two ounces) and a pretty high cost to get that much mercury.It wouldn't be too dangerous, unless you have a leak because well, mercury doesn't soak. As long as you had something to get rid of the vapors(that's whats harmful) this could certainly be possible, but I am not sure how much it would cost and whether some of the enviromental agencies would even let you do it. Someone will be might suspicious when someone is ordering a gallon of mercury.

[Ridenow]

William (Jul 15, 2001 12:27 p.m.):
(A pound of mercury is like 1 or two ounces) .

LOL! Wanna try that again William?

I agree with what you said in the rest of it, but this little typo struck me as funny. I am not trying to pick on you, but I am trying to pick myself off the floor.

[Pitspawn]

Other problems related to mercury cooled rig...

1...Its VERY heavy and would drag pipes down and loosen fittings.
2...I could imagine that there would be EMI problems with using mercury.
3...If ANY of this stuff leaked, i mean in the minutest amount, run. The vapours kill and its conductive too.

[Gabertooth]

OC Community,

This mag drive you speak of is the principle magneto hydro dynamics is based on, remember "The Hunt for Red October" the caterpillar drive used this principle to move water (not mercury, but it could be done). One can predict the force exterted on the liquid by holding your thumd straight up your first finger straight forward (ala gun) and the middle finger perpendicular to the other two, the first finger represents elecric current, the middle represents the magnetic field and the thumb represents the force exterted on the substance in question.

-Gabertooth

[William]

Ridenow (Jul 15, 2001 05:22 p.m.):
William (Jul 15, 2001 12:27 p.m.):
(A pound of mercury is like 1 or two ounces) .

LOL! Wanna try that again William?

I agree with what you said in the rest of it, but this little typo struck me as funny. I am not trying to pick on you, but I am trying to pick myself off the floor.

aren't there so many ounces of water in a cup? whatever, its like the little unit of a cup thats what I was reffering too, thought they are ounces, like fluid ounces. But yes, I can see where the confusion would happen.

[whiskeyinajar]

you could use copper pipes they wouldnt get bogged down by the mercury and you could solder almost every joint so you wouldnt get leaks.

[William]

mercury is a weird substance though, sitting long term in copper it is very likely to immagalmate itself through. Mercury is used in Gold mining for this reason.

[JigPu]

I was just going to post this exact same question only a few days ago, when I decided that it probably wouldn't work... But since it's here, I guess someone thinks like me!

OK. I was actually thinking about using any liquid metal, not just mercury. I was going to mention the possibility of mercury in my post, but it would be mostly concerned with Gallium. I dunno if it is poisunus or not, but it is another metal that is liquid (at a reletivly low temp). I first found out about it in my science book, and they had a picture of someone holding some, with it melting in their hand. It isn't liquid at room temp (I think) but melts at a really low temp. A page about it is here....

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Ga/key.html

Any comments? Would it be better than mercury? I was figuring you could use some kind of heater to melt it, and then get it into your "metal cooling" setup.

Just another suggestion....
JigPu

[William]

NO!!!! DON"T USE GALIUM! Unless you keep it just above room temp(i think Galium melts in the upper 80s low 90sF) then it is a solid. That would suck to have it solidify in your radiator wouldn't it? :D I also don't think Galium would conduct that well given its family history(Carbon, Silicon). I think mercury is an ok idea, but I think cost and performance becomes an issue. You will not be able to pump it with a regular water pump, you will need one bad @ss pump to do it.

[Crash893]

First off you wont believe how many people will tell you mercury is dangerous

Here is my 1:30 am brainstorm on how to use it

i figured you don’t have to use it threw the whole system

If any of you have ever seen a heart lung machine you’ll know what I’m talking about for a Mercury pump basically it just squeezes the tube and pushes the substance threw


Also in the mercury water heat exchange you could have a water jet shooting down into the Mercury to kind of mix things up a little and make sure to put the water inlet and outlet high enough that they don't get any Mercury in them

Also for added affect you could use the sunny d water block to cut out every thing between the die and the mercury


ps for some reason ms paint saved all my gray ( mercury) as a light blue purple

use your imagination

[William]

i would be very weary of having mercury touch the die.

*modify* mercury is very dangerous if you breathe the vapors in.

[JML]

Ok, lets see what we have established so far-
1. Don't eat, breath, bath in, or smoke mercury...cause its dangerous! (dun dun dun)
2. It may immagalmate (is this a real word?) itself through the copper.
3. It weights a lot.
4. May require special pump (Hoot, if you any place where I could read about this pump or how it works, I would like to read it)
5. If it worked it would kick ass!

#3 concerns me the most, because it will lead to #1. I wonder how much this stuff cost?

[dozier768]

howabout "how much does mercury cost by the gallon" lol i imagine that its probably quite expensive, and my thoughts on this long time discussed alternative cooling method is its not in any way practical. if you want extreme cooling just go for a water cooler with a peltier. its cheap, it works, it wont cause you to go insane if you ingest it, and it wont break your wallet, and its a proven efficient method. if you have something that works, and its simple what would you have to gain by going with an expensive . possibly deadly. method that wont really do any better of a job?

[IFMU]

And you say your an extremist??? LoL... I had a thought along these lines, but not exactly, and since you are all at least remotely intelligent then maybe you could help the little minded people like myself... My question is Liquid Nitrogen, If inside a sealed environment, does it remain liquid? and if the object that is in is heated, what happens to the LN? Does it become gaseous? or just get hot? or? Understand what I mean? if not just tell me to shut up...

[asmodean]

Just dump some LN2 to a container and apply enough pressure, that should keep it liquid.

[Smizack]

I'm not sure about copper, but Mercury WILL react with aluminum. It's called Amalgamation, and it does it very fast.

[Smizack]

asmodean (Jul 16, 2001 07:41 a.m.):
Just dump some LN2 to a container and apply enough pressure, that should keep it liquid.
D-am that would be a cold system!

[Crash893]

William (Jul 16, 2001 12:51 a.m.):
i would be very weary of having mercury touch the die.

*modify* mercury is very dangerous if you breathe the vapors in.
why would it be any better or worse than having watter touch the die ( sunny d waterblock)?

[Mictlan]

Let me throw in some fact about mercury:

1.-Its density is 13.546 kg per liter (about 1808.75 ounces per gallon)
2.-Freezing point -38.87°C
3.-Boiling point 359.6°C
4.-It will, eventually, amalgamate with any metal, especially noble metals (like gold, silver or copper)
5.-One of it most interteng properties it's it very high surface tension. This property measure the ability of a compond to remain in a droplet or wet a surface. As we all know, if you pour some merrcury, it will for droplets that are very hard to break.

Because of the above property, mercury flowing thrue a pipe will get into the holes of the material. As this will be next to imposible to remove the mercury will remain for quite some time, allowing it to reaction with the material.

I don't know if some low metal steel alloys don't react to mercury but you can check. If you want to make the experiment you will be needing a very powerfull pump that has
a) no moving parts
b) or is made of plastic.

As this system will be used at high pressures, you will need to weld all the system.

As for toxicity, mercury is higly poisonous as vapors. Also, if absorbed into the skin is also very poisonous. You will need some chemical to remove it from your skin (I don't remember which one). Even if minute amounts of mercury remain in your system, your body can't eliminate it, so it will increase if your continue handling mercury over the time. There is some investigation, if mercury is responsible of genetic damage and if present while pregnant, causes acefalia (this produces that the fetus develops no brain).

I suggest, if this is ever considered, extreme caution.

[el]

Acros organics sells Hg for $73bucks for 500grams! now the density is 13.5 so that would be about 37mL of Hg for 73bucks. so cost maybe a real problem. Also to get rid of Hg legally cost about 75dollars a mL so to buy and dispose of a Liter of Hg would be about 1972+ bunch to get rid of a liter we are not talking cheap.

[spokeshave]

asmodean (Jul 16, 2001 07:41 a.m.):
Just dump some LN2 to a container and apply enough pressure, that should keep it liquid.

DON"T DO THIS!!! I am sorry about the shouting, but under no circumstances should LN2 be placed in a sealed container. It will explode. Not might, not could, but will. If you do not have any experience with LN2, I highly advise that you stay away from it.

[Crazy Jayhawk]

This post is probably redundant; so sue me.

Mercury is a metal and poisonous. If it leaks, you risk your health and you'll probably short out your system. You'd have to be very careful with the stuff you use to transport the mercury since it has a habit of getting through very small holes. If you put a drop of mercury on your hand, it'd soak right in through the pores in your skin. You'd probably have to use some very exotic tubing to transport it from the cpu to the pump and back.

But if you can sort out the problems, mercury is the ultimate in room-temperature liquid coolant.

[Crash893]

like I said there's no shortage of people that will tell you this stuff is dangerous


btw for all of you that say its only the vapors that will kill you take a big swig of the stuff and then tell me its not toxic except for the vapors

there actually doesn't have to be that much mercury you can almost contain the whole thing in a larger size water block I don't why you would need more than about 1/4 a cup


does any one know what will happen if you put mercury in a blender with water

will it mix ( i don't think it will)

how quickly will it separate

will the water become toxic


anyone anyone?

[Crazy Jayhawk]

I think water would just float on top of the mercury. The stuff is so dense that you can float steel bolts in it.

[William]

crash893 (Jul 16, 2001 12:58 p.m.):
William (Jul 16, 2001 12:51 a.m.):
i would be very weary of having mercury touch the die.

*modify* mercury is very dangerous if you breathe the vapors in.
why would it be any better or worse than having watter touch the die ( sunny d waterblock)?

because mercury is weird in how it will react with substances and what it will do. It could very likely find its way into the core, not good.

You can drink mercury and be fine with it. The chinese king did it and he was relitavely good for doing that everyso often. Plus, I know thats true from what my chem teacher has told me, and she has a phd. But anyways, the other thing people are touching on is how difficult mercury is to clean up, its very hard and will not soak into a paper towl.

[Mictlan]

crash893 (Jul 16, 2001 04:41 p.m.):
like I said there's no shortage of people that will tell you this stuff is dangerous


btw for all of you that say its only the vapors that will kill you take a big swig of the stuff and then tell me its not toxic except for the vapors

does any one know what will happen if you put mercury in a blender with water

will it mix ( i don't think it will)

how quickly will it separate

will the water become toxic

anyone anyone?

1.- If you drink mercury, you might not die right away. Mercury is not a contact poison....its more like lead. You need to absorb a certain amount of it, so wthat you will began to feel sick.

2.-Mixing water and mercury is like mixing oil and water. A very smal amount of mercury will disolve into the water (I don't have any data, but it might be some parts per million).

3.-The resulting water is poisonous. The copper mines used to dump waste water with mercury until they killed the fish in some rivers.