Wouldn't it be possible...

...to have a really high-pressure container of something really cold, like Liquid Nitrogen, stuff it onto a CPU or something, and use that as coolant? If it can't expand due to the heat, it should stay cool... Right?

I'm sure I'm missing something really basic, as nothing like this is being utilized right now, so, could someone explain a bit on what I'm missing?

wrong, itll expand until something gives and i dont want to be around when it does.

LN2 is expensive, and it boils off.


CPUs will not work at like -180.

The process of the liquid expanding and evaporating is what causes it to be cold. If you have LN2, it boils at -196c, and it wont get higher than that at standard pressure. This means that if you pump heat into LN2, instead of it going to -195 ect. it boils faster. The same happens with water, only at a boiling point of 100C. Water wont get any hotter than 100C unless you increase the pressure. At which point the molecules of water are held together tighter and wont boil until the temperature is increased further.

If you have LN2 at high pressure, then you may as well have a solid block of metal strapped to your CPU, because no heat will leave the system, the LN2 will only heat up and increase the pressure in the container.

I think the LN would absorb enough heat into it's container untill the point where it just got warm. Also I know LN2 isn't a gas but gasses get cold only when they expand (ex phase change) so A compressor is needed to compress the gas before it decompresses again. I heard NoL say though that LN can be used as a refrigerant though.

If you had liquid nitrogen, liquified by pressure, it would not be cold It would be room temperature, just at a insane pressure that allowed liquification. Thus it would just increase pressure in the system, and no cooling effect would be gained. Having the liquid, then dropping the pressure to room pressure, is what makes it cold. It's performing a phase change.

NoL why aren't u the Extreme Cooling sections moderator?? You're like the king of coldness ..

Haha never been asked to do that, plus its rather slow ya know.