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

Q: Anybody tried mercury cooling?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

mungbean

New Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2001
Just a thought - would using mercury instead of water produce a cooler setup?

Anybody any thoughts on what materials you'd have to use for your pipework, seals and block?

I know it is pretty toxic stuff, but I reckon somebody must be mad enough to have tried it!
 
Where to hell would you get your hands on that much mercury? Its a Class 3 chemical...not to mention the fact that any contact with (vapors and such) causes permanent brain damage...so you might build one but in a month you'd be a vegetable, how are you going to get bragging rights that way?...Excellent cooling characteristics, I'm sure, but at what cost? A Total Imersion System is way more practical.....and....enviormentally friendly :p
 
I do believe, that water is better at sucking up heat than Mercury, however other more important reasons follow.

1) Okay, this reason was more of a lack of a reason.. I removed it.. Heh, the other two are good though.

2) The vapors: Yes, these are VERY BAD. You know how the mad hatter got his name? They used to heat up mercury and dip the felt in it to clean it... Mercury alone isn't the safest stuff in the world, but isn't way up there on the bad stuff.. Some cultures even drink it as a fix-it-all medicine (which doesn't work I'm sure.) The vapors however are aweful, so if we're talking about heating up the mercury (thus in a cooling system) and it's accumulative. Unless you're cooling system is air-tight all around..

3) The stuff is dense, 13.6 times the density of water.. Heavy, you'd need one HELL of a pump to push that sucker through a cooling setup, it's impractical.. You'd have better luck with liquid nitrogen prolly..

So, unless you've already whiffed a few too many mercury vapors, it's probably wise to find some other super cooling idea.
 
It would be cost prohibitive, but I think your idea would work.

The cheapest - safest way to cool CPUs below ambient is to build a water chiller and incorporate it into a water cooling rig.

mungbean (Jan 15, 2001 06:35 a.m.):
Just a thought - would using mercury instead of water produce a cooler setup?

Anybody any thoughts on what materials you'd have to use for your pipework, seals and block?

I know it is pretty toxic stuff, but I reckon somebody must be mad enough to have tried it!
 
so how much of the stuff have you been sniffing lately?

from sunny north london
Marcy

ears on: Paul van Dyk - I Can't Feel It
 
Quite a lot actually!

BTW, I can actually get my hands on quite a large amount of this stuff, but I'm not going to risk it...

{also in sunny north london}
 
When mercury contacts something warm it's surface tension rises,it "sticks" to the surface,that really reduces it's ability to carry heat away.
 
Back