alchohol system?

[emericanchaos]

i've been thinking. what fluids would hold heat better than water. isn't alchohol more tolerant of temperature? wouldn't that do better than water? also, would making the water thicker in some way improve heat transfer. greater density would mean it's harder to heat up, no?

[JFettig]

no its not as good, and itll evaporate and seep out of eeven a water tight system, they arent always air tight..

[NeoMoses]

mercury would be nice. it's a bit heavy, hard to come by, toxic, and not really feasible at all, but it would be nice....

[Ottoman]

Originally posted by emericanchaos
i've been thinking. what fluids would hold heat better than water. isn't alchohol more tolerant of temperature? wouldn't that do better than water? also, would making the water thicker in some way improve heat transfer. greater density would mean it's harder to heat up, no?


not much beats pure water...

remember the longer it takes to heat up, the longer it takes to shed the heat, u gotta find a balance...

alcohol is good for sub zero cuz it doesn't freeze....
other than that, pure water, with some water wetter is the way to go

[Caffinehog]

Originally posted by NeoMoses
mercury would be nice. it's a bit heavy, hard to come by, toxic, and not really feasible at all, but it would be nice....

Actually, mercury would suck. It can only carry 3% of the heat that water can.

You can compare several substances with this site:
http://www.yesican.yorku.ca/home/sh_table.html

The specific heat shows how much heat can be absorbed by 1g of a substance before it increases in temperature by 1C.

Water is the best. Alcohol is half as good. And these two substances leave most others far behind.

Plus, mercury dissolves copper and many other metals. Goodbye waterblock!

[Huckleberry]

Mercury mixed with aluminum would cause a very exothermic reaction. No kidding. Disintigration of the aluminum, toxic fumes, possibly fire. Very cool.

Just a bit of trivia for the chemically-curious.

(I've seen some airlines that even disallow thermometers in one's luggage. They don't want to take a chance that a broken mercury-based thermometer would cause mercury to contact the aluminum hull of the airplane, weakening the hull or creating holes in it. This would be a bad thing, eh?)

[RuKK]

Actualy I've been thinking about a closed loop system using vodka as coolant with a couple 226W pelts on the radiator. Or maybe just put the radiator in a minifridge/freezer.

[Cheesy Peas]

Originally posted by RuKK
Actualy I've been thinking about a closed loop system using vodka as coolant with a couple 226W pelts on the radiator. Or maybe just put the radiator in a minifridge/freezer.


Are You Serious?


WHY?!:eek:

[Caffinehog]

Originally posted by RuKK
Actualy I've been thinking about a closed loop system using vodka as coolant with a couple 226W pelts on the radiator. Or maybe just put the radiator in a minifridge/freezer.
Hmm... 10-20% alcohol depending on the quality. Most of the heat transfer of water, much lower freezing point... sounds good to me.

[Big_Baller]

I used 20/10 winshield washer for a while. I got great temps and its is good to -25 f

[emericanchaos]

hrmm ok thanks. thought there may be something better than plain old water.

[LiquidSquirt]

Originally posted by Big_Baller868
I used 20/10 winshield washer for a while. I got great temps and its is good to -25 f

You should considering its about 85% methanol!