H2O2 as a coolant?

[Seyeklopz]

Can H2O2 be used as a coolant? Is it possible to make the system 100% airtight so it doesn't allow the H2O2 to change into H2O?

Of more importance: Does H2O2 conduct heat better than H2O?

H2O2 is peroxide btw.

I found this datasheet: H2O2

Hydrogen Peroxide was resonsible for the sinking of a russian submarine. It leaked in a torpedo and because of the confined space within it caused an explosion. Definitely need to research that event to see if another chemical was involved.

[Joe]

H2O2 is a terrible coolant. let me explain why:

1. its unstable. Airtight or not, the H2O2 will break down into H2O due to it being moved constantly. When it does it will release that extra Oxygen molecule and you will start to accumulate O2 in the system.

2. its reactive... you dont want any metal in the system... bottom line. Aluminum, copper, and especially silver.

3. breaks down in light, so if you have clear lines it will break down into H2O with just background UV light hitting the lines.

I played with H2O2 a while back, was cool, but really was unimpressive due to the almost soda like carbonation the water seemed to develop with the release of Oxygen from it as it broke down.

The reason they use it in torpedo's is because its fuel.... it reacts so violently in high concentrations (40%+)(stuff you can buy without a license is under 1%, most likely .3%) that it is a excelent fuel for propelling stuff like torpedo's. Even some ICBM scale rockets use a H2O2 and Silver reaction to launch them into space. real H2O2 is so bad you dont want to be any where around it in high concentrations, it will disolve organic matter rather fast, and react with most metals.

[Seyeklopz]

Have you found any interesting liquids in your research? High density oils, silicones, different water-like molecules?

I'm interested in salines, or other water solutions. Nickel plated heatsinks could deal with the rusting problem possibly.

Looking for some liquids to experiment with.

All this h202 stuff is getting me interesting in taking a chemistry course

[Joe]

If only operating temperatures were higher in our cooling systems.. cause I would kill to see someone use like a liquid lithium or liquid sodium setup

really Flourinert is sorta cool still but not practical if you are dooing room temp cooling. '

for room temp cooling, Water is still the best bet.

[Seyeklopz]

You could always use a severely positive pressure coolant system to melt those materials at lower temperatures, if you were insane like me that is

[Joe]

Shit, having liquid lithium or soduim anywhere around you would make you pretty damn insane as is one air leak, or moisture mixing in... and boom...

[Seyeklopz]

Does florinert transfer heat better than water? Or is it designed for supercooling below water's freezing point?

I found a good faq for florinert and another coolant here.

Check out this chart of thermal conductivity of water + glycerine solutions.

[Boli]

Changing the coolent I don;t think will have any bearing on the performance.... to get better heat conduction than what we are already getting we may have to rethink thinngs and consider other ideas.

NB: I am not talking active cooling but the perfect mix of materials and chemical that get enargy (stored as heat) from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.

Maybe:

Heat pipes are very good at transfering heat... I have one on my GPU (Zalamen) and to be honest both sides increase in temperature at virtually the same rate.

Of course you would have to do a LOT of research but maybe you use it in conjunction with a water block helping remove excess heat from the baseplate to another place to cool it, or make the tubing into a conductor for heat... a sort of flexible heat pipe?

[bigben2k]

FYI, H2O2 reacted with Stainless Steel: It caused a gas buildup, and the internal pressure grew until the torpedo blew up.

[Seyeklopz]

I saw a show about ferrofluid. It's a bunch of carefully engineered iron particles suspended in an oil. I thought it might conduct heat very well. The careful engineering was to keep the fluid flowing and not to sediment together.

What if we used a fine metal powder suspended in water. Something thermally conductive and corrosion resistant. Pumping becomes an issue, especially when going through the radiator.

Requirements:
· long, screw type pump
· flush internal fluid paths. no sharp edges
· waterblocks would be straight in one side, out the other
The radiator could be a wide flat tube with fins on either side with dual fans blowing through them.

The pipe has been cut away. There would also be plates covering the tops of the fins to direct airflow. Dual 120mm fans.

[flyingass]

When effectiveness of a circulating coolant is in question, the primary properties (of a non-chilled design) that need to be selected for are specific heat and viscosity. Conduction, in a well-designed system, is almost entirely irrelevant to our purposes.

The specific heat of water is 4.186 j/gm K, higher than any metal commonly used in cooling systems. However due to specific heat's dependence on mass, density is just as important for specific heat per unit volume.

Some values of specific heat per unit volume, obtained by multiplying density values by specific heat values (in J/cc °K).
Water = 4.186 / Viscosity = 1.0
Fluorinert (most dense formula) = 0.483 / Viscosity = 12.6
Hydrogen peroxide, 100% = 0.885 / Viscosity = 1.22
Mercury = 1.904 / Viscosity = 1.55

For viscosity values, lower is better. Fluorinert ranges from 0.4 to 14.0 cS, so one of the less dense formulas would be a better choice if it was absolutely necessary.
Water is dramatically more effective than anything else here - even mercury, which is nearly 14 times as dense.

Ferrofluids, then. Considering the specific heat per volume of some metals:
Iron = 3.502
Aluminum = 2.43
Copper = 3.427
Silver = 2.465
and then weighting that value by the amount of the material actually suspended in the fluid. Generously assuming 50% suspension, and an oil with a specific heat/vol of 1.0, we get some rather pessimistic initial estimates for ferrofluid thermal capacity (between 1.7 and 2.3 or so), without even considering such a substance's viscosity's effect on cooling capability.

Would you really want to go through all that trouble only to get reduced performance? I can't imagine any of the materials would be cheap either...

[Cathar]

About the only non-toxic liquid that's better for cooling than water, is heavy water, and that's hardly cheap either.

Water, one of the most abundant natural resources on the planet, just happens to be about the most effective at the job.

A 50:50 mix of water:caustic soda also has higher thermal capacity (~4800J/kgC), which when combined with its density makes it probably the only cheaply obtaining liquid that's better than water for soaking up heat. Problem is that it can hardly be called "non toxic", or is it really safe for your system.

[sevisehda]

I've played with the ferrofluid you spoke of its actually pretty fun. Its like magnetic water. If you hold a magent to the container the water will flow onto the side of the bottle. I never checked the thermal conductivity of it.

Flourinert is only necessary for a submerged cooling solution, to spend the money for it and run it through tubing is a waste.

Best cooling is water. The CBA(Cost Benefit Analysis) shows water is clearly the most logical choice. Anything else costs way too much and it barely better. Plus a water leak may kill your comp but won't harm you. Playing with some of this other stuff prolly isn't very good for ya.

[Seyeklopz]

I'm going to focus my energies on developing a really good heatpipe heat sink for the cpu. Like an all in one heatsink/pipe/rad that blows air directy to the power supply where it will get exhausted.

Prob use water in it, but maybe mercury It'd be a closed system with no plastic pipes.

Thanks for all the great input!

[Joe]

Originally posted by Cathar
About the only non-toxic liquid that's better for cooling than water, is heavy water, and that's hardly cheap either.

Obtaining heavy water would also be fun... I can see it now... geek gets arrested by the FBI for trying to purchase moderator material for a nuclear reactor (which is what heavy water is)

[Seyeklopz]

LOL

Well, I'd finally have a reason for those radioactive fan grills

[redleader]

Originally posted by Seyeklopz
You could always use a severely positive pressure coolant system to melt those materials at lower temperatures, if you were insane like me that is

Positive pressure does the opposite . . .

Look up LeChatelier's Principle.

[Phant0m51]

Anybody ever see a cup of water in a vacuum? It boils, then freezes (if the pressure is pulled out fairly slow). Is there any way we could use vacuum's (not a Hoover, but a lack of matter in space) to cool our systems? Maybe put your radiater inside of an almost air-tight bubble and suck air out of it? I have no idea if this would work or not (probably not) but it's an idea. Theoretically you could have no fans in your case, just 2 pumps. 1 pump for the water, the other for sucking the air out of this 'bubble'.

I don't even know if it's possible to do, What do you guys think?

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by Phant0m51
Anybody ever see a cup of water in a vacuum? It boils, then freezes (if the pressure is pulled out fairly slow). Is there any way we could use vacuum's (not a Hoover, but a lack of matter in space) to cool our systems? Maybe put your radiater inside of an almost air-tight bubble and suck air out of it? I have no idea if this would work or not (probably not) but it's an idea. Theoretically you could have no fans in your case, just 2 pumps. 1 pump for the water, the other for sucking the air out of this 'bubble'.

I don't even know if it's possible to do, What do you guys think?

I think it's a wacky idea.

Let's put aside the question of how you'd create the vacuum in the first place. Last I checked, vacuum pumps aren't cheap.

The system would need to be perfectly sealed, otherwise you'd have to have a pump to maintain the vacuum. I don't believe that our standard barbs and hose connections would do the job, but an o-ring gasket should be OK. Assuming that the tubing doesn't collapse, you'd have to deal with finding a pump whose housing is meant to handle a low pressure.

I believe that we tackled and calculated the benefit before, and it was not significant enough, and certainly didn't warrant the expense.

But you're talking about sealing the rad, not the loop.

In that case, the heat couldn't escape the radiator through convection anywhere near as effectively, which leaves the heat to escape by radiation. Radiated heat is the least efficient way of getting heat out of a system. If you work for NASA, you know the problems associated with it (radiated heat is the only way to cool a system, in space).


Keep at it:something will come

[sevisehda]

The problem with heavy water is the fact its slightly radio active. They intentionally release it into pipes/caves and then use geiger counters to fallow the water and see if there is a leak in the pipe or were the caves goes.

The reason why water gets cold in a vacuum because as it boils it absorbs alot of energy to go from liquid to gas. Which is why you sweat, as the sweat evaporates you cool down. If you want to use this then try using a bong cooler.

If you want even lower temps from a bong try using alcohol, since it evaporates at a lower temp it gets well below ambient. Then your room will reak of alcohol though.

[Seyeklopz]

redleader
Positive pressure does the opposite . . .

Look up LeChatelier's Principle.

Oh, right.. oops.. BrainTypo

Phant0m51
Anybody ever see a cup of water in a vacuum? It boils, then freezes (if the pressure is pulled out fairly slow). Is there any way we could use vacuum's (not a Hoover, but a lack of matter in space) to cool our systems? Maybe put your radiater inside of an almost air-tight bubble and suck air out of it?

Actually, if a component in a vacuum heats up it has a terrible time getting rid of the heat. There's no air molecules to conduct the heat away. Only radiated heat is released.

Vacuums are already used in heat pipes to allow the fluid inside to boil and absorb heat at different temperature ranges.

[Alchemy]

Originally posted by Phant0m51
Anybody ever see a cup of water in a vacuum? It boils, then freezes (if the pressure is pulled out fairly slow). Is there any way we could use vacuum's (not a Hoover, but a lack of matter in space) to cool our systems? Maybe put your radiater inside of an almost air-tight bubble and suck air out of it? I have no idea if this would work or not (probably not) but it's an idea. Theoretically you could have no fans in your case, just 2 pumps. 1 pump for the water, the other for sucking the air out of this 'bubble'.

I don't even know if it's possible to do, What do you guys think?

So, your idea is to perfectly insulate the radiator against convection?

Veeery interestink . . . But schtupid.

Alchemy

[Cathar]

Originally posted by sevisehda
The problem with heavy water is the fact its slightly radio active. They intentionally release it into pipes/caves and then use geiger counters to fallow the water and see if there is a leak in the pipe or were the caves goes.

Heavy water is not radioactive. It might be after it's been used as a nuclear reactor slowing agent, but in its natural state, it isn't.

There's heavy water in the water that you drink. We're all drinking it all the time. The oceans are full of it. It occurs in low concentrations though.

[hydrogen18]

these are all good ideas, the bubble one is the most interesting, but overall performance would be equal or worse to that of phase change. Btw, the nuclear sub only blew up because it set off one torpedo, consequently setting off the others... Also, pharmacy peroxide is 5%. If you want to see it react, put in a sealed container with red blood cells or potato sliced up. THe container will eventually explode. M&Ms minis tubes work well for a type of time delay grenade. Slice up some potato, fill the tube with peroxide, then put in the potato and close the lid. Sit it somewhere where it is sure to spook somebody when it goes "bang".

[flyingass]

Heavy water is just over 10% denser than distilled water, which is where its main improvement would be, since its specific heat is only minimally increased (on the order of 1%).

The concentration of deuterium oxide in seawater is about 200 ppm, so as Cathar said, very small amounts. Not that it would matter if it were in fact radioactive. The carbon-14 and...that other (others?) radioactive isotope present in living tissue create far more radiation than heavy water could ever hope to produce.

Any interested aussies might want to check out this page. It might be a possible source for small volumes, but i suspect it follows the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" adage.