[MameXP]

Hi,

I'm currently using Hydrx from Swiftech and man only coupple of weeks there is a nasty organic stuff growing in my loop

I would never ever recommend this coolant to anyone. Ofcourse the mixture is with distilled water.

So i'm looking for the best coolant/antifreeze out there. ANy recommendation?

I'm thinking of VW antifreeze since its cool blue.

Thanks

[Liquid_Cooled]

well, right now im using 95% distilled water, 5% water wetter, and some Deep Blue Dylite. Ive been running this mixture for about 6 months now, and i have no bacteria growth at all.

[rhino56]

why cant you just add a drop of bleach?

[MameXP]

Originally posted by rhino56
why cant you just add a drop of bleach?

corrosion....

my block has anodized alu and copper base, i dont want to risk it.

lol hope you didnt do that

[Korndog]

yep, bleach is a bad idea..
i've personally used Zerex @10% for two years. Never a spot of organic stuff. Recently switched to prenstone orange stuff and still the same results. if u put atleast 10% of it, i doubt anything can live in it.. and use distilled water, i used tap water for a year and would continously find little particles of .. stuff everytime i'd empty it out to add/switch components.

the vw coolant should work find, just make sure it has a good amount of glycol in it

[Cathar]

100% ethanol

[Korndog]

Originally posted by Cathar
100% ethanol

is ethanol a corrosion inhibiter??

[Cathar]

Originally posted by Korndog


is ethanol a corrosion inhibiter??

I was answering the title of the thread.

Unsure as to its corrosion inhibiting properties. Depends on its propensity to carry free ions. Someone who's good a chemistry could answer that one.

[Korndog]

Originally posted by Cathar


I was answering the title of the thread.

Unsure as to its corrosion inhibiting properties. Depends on its propensity to carry free ions. Someone who's good a chemistry could answer that one.

oo sorry forgot about the all copper swiftech block.
i got chem tomarrow, i'll ask my teacher if she knows, if it does, i'm ditching this glycol.

[Cathar]

I just know that ethanol at >80% concentration will kill most any biological thing due to it destroying cell walls.

[BeerHunter]

Ethanol has way too much molecular mass to be an effective coolant. The at room temp, liquid, the best liquid cooler is ammonia followed by water. Ammonia is a bad idea because in solution water and ammonia form ammonium hydroxide and the hydroxyl anion reacts with copper to form copper sulphate eating both radiator and water block

<--A + in HS AP Chemistry.

[johan851]

Ethanol's a good think, but doesn't have very good heat properties, I don't think. There was comparison article on a lot of that over in the www.overclockers.com archives... here:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles609/

I use methanol in my system, and it seems to be working pretty well. As far as I know, it doesn't have any corrosion issues.

[MameXP]

How much does VW antifreeze cost?

Where do i get methanol? And how much should i put into my coolant mixture

[BeerHunter]

Methanol is also terrible. has molecular mass around 34 vs water of 18. The way water or any other liquid get it's heat capacitance/Capacity is by coverting the heat to kenetic energy which is the bending and breaking and rotations and vibrations between atoms. Natually the lighter molecules there are more molecules per gram there are also more atoms to tweak which makes water and other lower molecular mass species buffer against changes in temperature better. Or something like that.

But if we look at the specific heat properties of water vs. methanol you will see it scales nicley with molecular mass.


2.55 vs 4.18 J g-1 K-1 for water

34 ....vs... 18

Link
http://kahuna.sdsu.edu/testcenter/te.../tables/sl.pdf

Notice ammoina is king at 4.80 J g-1 K-1 and has mass of 17 lower than waters 18

I forgot to add the more atoms in a molecule the better since more energy can be converted and released. And Ammonia beats water on that count too.

[Cathar]

Specific heat properties for cooling are largely over-rated.

For example, the SHC of water is 4186J/kgC. For ethanol it's 2453J/kgC. Water has a density of 1. Ethanol 0.8.

Per 1 litre volume, water has a heat capacity (HC) of 4186J/lC. For ethanol, it's ~1960J/lC.

i.e. ethanol has roughly half the thermal capacity of water per volume.

However, assuming a 100W heat load and 6LPM flow rates, the water will heat up by (100/4186) / (6/60) = 0.24C as it flows through the block, and ethanol by ~0.51C.

i.e. At 6LPM flow rates the difference between ethanol and water is at best 0.27C based on SHC of each substance alone. Given sufficient flow rates, one liquid can have a fairly crap thermal capacity compared to water and still not be noticably worse (based on specific heat capacity alone).

Where it gets important for heat transfer is the relative viscosities and rate of thermal conduction for the two liquids. Less viscous liquids will have thinner boundary layers and will become more turbulent more easily. The thermal conductance of the liquid determines how hard it is for the heat in the metal to pass through that boundary layer into the greater liquid mass. i.e. a liquid with very low viscosity and low conductance can be just as good as a syrupy liquid with high thermal conductance.

What we want overall is a liquid that has a thermal mass per volume of no lower than about 1000J per liter-C, and has a lower viscosity than water, and a higher thermal conductance than water.

If you chemists can find such a liquid, then that would be the better liquid to use than water.

[BeerHunter]

However, assuming a 100W heat load and 6LPM flow rates, the water will heat up by (100/4186) / (6/60) = 0.24C as it flows through the block, and ethanol by ~0.51C.
---------
How do you model this mathmaticaly? Just curious. I assume you're using a WW so I think I have all the fiqures now. But I freeze there. The units labels don't seem to balance Ie how do you end up with C. don't understand where you stop and start the measuring, where you account for the water heating up being reintroduced into the block. Nor how you account for the thermal propeties of the liquid once it hits the raditor. How much heat it looses there? Very confused. Also how do you know this w/o viscoity data in your equation? You say in the following paragraph viscocity is also factor but don't account for it it seems. Help me out here

As far as Vicosity, that I believe is a direct coorelation to Van Deer Vaals (sp) forces, Which is the intermolecular attraction between same species. The less attraction the lower the vicosity. having two electronegitve species like O and C in the same molecule in the alcohols increases the attraction to H of the neighboring molecules so the alcohols are worse on that front too.

[Orka]

Originally posted by Cathar

What we want overall is a liquid that has a thermal mass per volume of no lower than about 1000J per liter-C, and has a lower viscosity than water, and a higher thermal conductance than water.

If you chemists can find such a liquid, then that would be the better liquid to use than water.

From reading basic literature on pumps i understand that pumps are highly sensitive to liquid viscosity. Lower liquid viscosity will lead to increased internal leaks lowering pumps output and fastenening its tear. If such a liquid will be used, than aproriate pump should be installed in the system and not a "regular" water pump. Am i right?

[BeerHunter]

If you chemists can find such a liquid, then that would be the better liquid to use than water.
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Haha I wish. I'm just guessing when Phasues (sp) comes in here he'll prolly Pwnz me. Anyway I think there is such a liquid used called" flornet" or something like that...I check but I have heard of there being one used in cooling they use during semiconductor manu.