• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Is it possible to use liquid nitrogen as refrigerant?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
I don't think nitrogen can be a liquid at room temperature, so the "phase change" effect would be non-existent.
 
Yes, however its a completely different kind of refrigerant.
Anything can be a refrigerant really.

Nitrogen is R728, and requires either a heavy duty cascading system, a heavy duty cyclic autocascade, or a very very high pressure cascade.
 
has that ever been done on this forum that wold be pretty cool prob like minus 300 cant you also use propane to cool your system and i also saw at a hospital a huge tank and condenser and radiator with an iceburg on it what is that used for jw that could cool something:beer:
 
I don't think nitrogen can be a liquid at room temperature, so the "phase change" effect would be non-existent.

true, accept thats in a open system. if in a tank/loop things change alot.

but as said not really practical.
 
And the closest was -273.14999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999C by nitrogen gas cooled with some very powerful and high tech systems. Of course a zero load situation as well.
 
And the closest was -273.14999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999C by nitrogen gas cooled with some very powerful and high tech systems. Of course a zero load situation as well.

yeah, didnt they do it with only like 10 molecules of the stuff. Bose einstein condensate is it not?
 
ya was talking Fahrenheit lol
how can i start to make a water chiller prob have hoses running outside so i have more room and quiet
 
If your looking for the cheap but inefficienct way, get a window ac and dunk the evap (or cold end for some of you as far as terms go) into a bucket.
 
Even if you could do it, I dont think it would work well because of the Leidenfrost effect. (im not thermo dynamics specialist or anything its just a guess) Beside the condensing equipment for that would be very very large. liquid nitrogen expands 700x its volume so the pressure would be pretty huge.
 
Last edited:
And the closest was -273.14999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999C by nitrogen gas cooled with some very powerful and high tech systems. Of course a zero load situation as well.

thats damn close, but as we have to use energy to draw energy away (which makes it cold) 0K is impossible to reach.

heres a hypothetical, if you could cool a processor to -273.149c would it become really really slow, no matter the hz?
 
heres a hypothetical, if you could cool a processor to -273.149c would it become really really slow, no matter the hz?

A processor (CPU) will just stop working at X temp (aka coldbug), I'm yet to see a slowdown, they work or they don't.
The best I've done so far is -187 with an X6800 sitting idle in windoz.
As long as I stayed under that temp it worked fine.

If the hardware had no issue running at -273.149c (note: with even a small load you wouldn't get that low) I can't see why another -86 would matter that much.



The guy that takes care of my liquid nitrogen needs, has some great tech cooling toys.

He can turn liquid hydrogen, superfluid. Very cool!
 
Why not just route the hoses through your mother-in-laws hands...that should chill it down pretty good shouldn't it?
 
thats damn close, but as we have to use energy to draw energy away (which makes it cold) 0K is impossible to reach.
heres a hypothetical, if you could cool a processor to -273.149c would it become really really slow, no matter the hz?

Yep, that's exactly right. It has been noted that as temperature tends towards 0K (-273.15°C) the energy required tends towards infinity and is therefore impossible to get to 0K

With your 'hypothetical' question I would say that even a processor that has no 'cold bug' that it would stop working anyway. As temperatures drop towards 0K matter's volume tends towards 0, so if it were possible to get to 0K the matter theoretically wouldn't exist, bye bye super expensive CPU!! Also it has been observed that as temperatures get towards get closer to 0K that the properties of the matter change drasticly, so the CPU wouldn't function with those new properties.
 
Back