What liquid shoud we put into water coolers?

wun911

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I undersand to raise the temperature of 1L of water(pure H20) it takes 1 kilojoule (lets say its energy expressed interms of heat).

However if we add impurities to water eg Salt (Sodium Chloride) etc it will now take more energy to rase the waters temperature!!!!

Wouldnt this be a good thing? Imagine 1L of cooolant in your water cooler now needs 100 kilojoules to raise its temp by 1 degree. This would allow the water in your water cooler to stay cool longer (correct me if im wrong)??

I work in a lab with pulse field gel electrophoresis. The buffers we use take 240wats over a 6 hr period and the buffer doesent raise in temperature by more than 5 degrees!

So who uses what liquids in thier water coolers?
 

mad_fitzy

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Yea. Wow thats a great idea. Yea lets add salt to a liquid cooling system. While your at it chuck some salt in your car radiator aswell and see how that goes.
 

IcY18

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i've heard some of the best things to use are thing like anti-freeze or car coolant for the most extreme users, also have seen references to other products used for cars but i can't remember them right now...
 

shawnlizzle =]

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vinegar is used to clean up build up in yoru loops when you flush it every 6 months

the ideal fluid is indeed water. anything you add will hinder its thermal transfer properties.

if you have all metals with around the same electronegativity, then water and some algecide will work. if you have different ones (ie. copper and alu) use anti-corrosion factors.(they'll slow the corrosion down, but not prevent it)
 

ToxicCow

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I undersand to raise the temperature of 1L of water(pure H20) it takes 1 kilojoule (lets say its energy expressed interms of heat).

actually it takes closer to 4000 kilojoules to rase 1 litre of water by 1c.
 

john_thor

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By far the best liquid to use for 99% of closed loop applications is water, with some corrosion and microbe/algae inhibitors.
 

Bluefinger

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I undersand to raise the temperature of 1L of water(pure H20) it takes 1 kilojoule (lets say its energy expressed interms of heat).

However if we add impurities to water eg Salt (Sodium Chloride) etc it will now take more energy to rase the waters temperature!!!!

Wouldnt this be a good thing? Imagine 1L of cooolant in your water cooler now needs 100 kilojoules to raise its temp by 1 degree. This would allow the water in your water cooler to stay cool longer (correct me if im wrong)??

I work in a lab with pulse field gel electrophoresis. The buffers we use take 240wats over a 6 hr period and the buffer doesent raise in temperature by more than 5 degrees!

So who uses what liquids in thier water coolers?

Firstly, a lesson in physics/chemistry. The heat capacity for pure water is 4.2J per gram of water. And since the density of water is 1 gram per cubic centimetre, add your numbers and it would take 4.2 kilojoules of energy to raise the temperature of a litre of water by 1 degree celsius. Adding common salt (Sodium Chloride) will not only increase the heat capacity significantly, but also lower the freezing point of water. However, saltwater is very corrosive for use as a coolant in a cooling system, particularly when exposed to copper. Strange that a person who works in a lab forgot such a simple fact! :lol:

Anyhoo, the best coolant you can get is distilled water, purely for the fact it still has a high heat capacity and isn't as corrosive.
 

chuckshissle

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There's nothing wrong about using anti-freeze and distilled water for liquid cooling. But personally I used a non-electrical conductive, non-corrosive and lubricant pc cooling fluid like Fluid XP+ and PrimoChill ICE. I'm new to water cooling and I used this somewhat costly cooling fluid to protect my hardwares as well. :D
 
However if we add impurities to water eg Salt (Sodium Chloride) etc it will now take more energy to rase the waters temperature!!!!

Wouldnt this be a good thing? Imagine 1L of cooolant in your water cooler now needs 100 kilojoules to raise its temp by 1 degree. This would allow the water in your water cooler to stay cool longer (correct me if im wrong)??

You're thinking is backwards. No, it would not be a good thing, if it requires more heat to raise the temp of the liquid, that is more heat the cpu has to produce to raise the temp of the liquid. The idea of liquid cooling is to remove the heat from the item to be cooled. Having any one component of the system that will retains heat or has a high heating index is counter-productive.

You do not want any impurities (or at least as little as possible) in the cooling liquid itself. This is to reduce corrosion, algae, and keep particles from clogging the lines, pumps, resevoir, etc...

And you say you work in a lab...

So who uses what liquids in thier water coolers?

You can use distilled water...a mix of distilled water and regular car-anti-freeze...you can purchase coolant and additives from places like Danger Den...and, actually if you peruse the Danger Den site, they offer many resources to answer your liquid cooling questions...that and a Google search yields scads of water cooling info.
 

Breman

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wonder what would happen if you used LSD as a coolent aditive, other then you computer being a bad trip when playing Doom 3.
 

clue69less

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So who uses what liquids in thier water coolers?

If your goal is to remove more heat from your PC, or if you want to lower the operating temperature of a component, then one possible solution is to lower the temperature of the coolant, be it air, water, whatever. Realize that such an approach can bring with it additional problems, such as condensation, noise, a large quantity of exhaust heat, etc. I have not yet witnessed a perfect solution - but I'm workin' on it!
 

kickbutt

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Lol, isnt the whole idea to get heat away from the CPU/GPU?

So therefor the FASTER the liquide picks up the energy from the cpu/gpu the better...

----

Or if u just want to have a as "cool" liquide as possible then dont even mount it on the cpu just let it sitt there pumping liquide around (should be room temp...)

=P
 

unstable

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i've heard some of the best things to use are thing like anti-freeze or car coolant for the most extreme users, also have seen references to other products used for cars but i can't remember them right now...

actually despite popular belief, antifreeze is not a better coolant than water. Antifreeze does just that, it prevents the water in your engine block from freezing and (without freeze plugs) cracking your block. With freeze plugs, theoretically the water begins freezing and it pops the freeze plugs out preventing a cracked block.

Also, antifreeze prevents corrosion to the cooling system in the car (i.e. radiator).

However; if you look at any race car...they don't run antifreeze...straight water.

I honestly don't know the mechanics behind this but water is superior to water + antifreeze or antifreeze.

edit-->however there is another additive called "30 Below" or "40 below" that is used in some hotrods. I'm not sure if this would be a better choice to water...
 

IcY18

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no, you have it all backwards, would you rather blow HOT air at a CPU or COLD air at a CPU, samething applies here with watercooling the cooler the water the better it do at removing the heat from the CPU, that being said thats why adding salt would be a good idea if not for its corosive factors...
 

chuckshissle

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What about Acetone???

Acetone or a some type of form of it, is what's used in heatpipes in HSF's. It's dissipates heat by condensation then back to liquid form again and repeats the cycle. It is a good thermal conductor however it is corrosive and it can dry out silicon tubes, seals, pumps and other plastic components that is why it is only used with metals like copper of that of HSF. Salt well I don't know much about it thermal conduction properties, but one thing, it can develope mineral deposits and deteriorates the liquid cooling components just like calcuim. That's why for most water cooling applications manufacturers recommend distilled water in addition of the anti-freeze in a ration of 3:1, 3 parts water and 1 part anti-freeze can help by protecting parts from corrosion and as well as inhibits the growth of algea. But if you don't want to bother with that, there's cooling fluid that are made specifically for pc cooling system and although costly, still with it's benifits can outweigh the cost. It's non-electrical conductive, non-toxic, lubricates and protects components, inhibits algea and it has about as close of thermal conduction properties that of water.
 

sdrawkcaBgoD

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Okay. If it takes more heat to raise the temp of the water with salt, then where the he!! is all the heat from the cpu going? If the water doesn't take the heat away, your cpu will fry. Therefore, you want a liquid that both heats up quickly (at the cpu) AND equally importantly cools down quickly (in the radiator/fan assembly) That is the basis of the entire watercooling concept. Therefore salt would be a bad idea.

The idea is to remove the heat from the cpu, not to prevent heat absorption.
 

briteball

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What about Acetone???

Acetone or a some type of form of it, is what's used in heatpipes in HSF's. It's dissipates heat by condensation then back to liquid form again and repeats the cycle. It is a good thermal conductor however it is corrosive and it can dry out silicon tubes, seals, pumps and other plastic components that is why it is only used with metals like copper of that of HSF. Salt well I don't know much about it thermal conduction properties, but one thing, it can develope mineral deposits and deteriorates the liquid cooling components just like calcuim. That's why for most water cooling applications manufacturers recommend distilled water in addition of the anti-freeze in a ration of 3:1, 3 parts water and 1 part anti-freeze can help by protecting parts from corrosion and as well as inhibits the growth of algea. But if you don't want to bother with that, there's cooling fluid that are made specifically for pc cooling system and although costly, still with it's benifits can outweigh the cost. It's non-electrical conductive, non-toxic, lubricates and protects components, inhibits algea and it has about as close of thermal conduction properties that of water.

thanks good to know...and i have a heatpipe on my sapphire 9800pro ultimate never came to my mind that there is something inside...doh :D
 

clue69less

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What about Acetone???

It is a good thermal conductor however it is corrosive and it can dry out silicon tubes, seals, pumps and other plastic components that is why it is only used with metals like copper of that of HSF.

I'd apreciate it if you would clarify your comment about acetone being corrosive. It is a very strong solvent for polar organics. It can swell some polymers and even dissolve some polymers. Still, it's possible to put together a recirculating system that could work with acetone. But it's very volatile and flammable and for those reasons, I'd never consider it for a PC liquid cooling system. Combine it with a x1900XTX and you're looking at a bomb in the hood.