Liquid Metal CPU Cooling 494
IceFoot writes "Bored with water cooling? Try a liquid metal cooler. It's a proven technology, used in nuclear reactors for decades because it carries heat away much better than a heat sink, heat pipe, or water cooling."
email. (Score:4, Funny)
To email IceFoot, send to sales@nanocoolers.com
Mystery metal revealed: (Score:5, Informative)
An alloy of gallium and indium. It is liquid well below room temperature, with a boiling point in the ballpark of 2000 C.
Another neat trick is that the system has no moving parts. The tubing passes through a magnetic feild. A pair of electrodes stick into the liquid metal and introduce a DC electric current, effectively creating a liquid electromagnet. The electric current through the magnetic feild is exactly the same as single winding of an electric motor - except the motor force is directly on the liquid metal itself. This force pumps the liquid around the cooling loop.
Silent, and no failure prone moving parts.
-
Re:Mystery metal revealed: (Score:5, Insightful)
People keep forgetting why liquid metal cooling is being abandoned in the nuclear industry. Liquid metals tend to be extremely aggressive substances. A Gallium-Indium mix will dissolve nearly any metal or alloy over time. Ceramics and glass tend to get permeated and lose their mechanical properties. Frankly no idea about plastics.
Re:Mystery metal revealed: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't judge it by that Terminator film.
Doesn't touch certain things... (Score:4, Informative)
All in all, it's obnoxious, but it's not anywhere near as bad as NaK alloys or liquid Na- there's a good reason why they abandoned that stuff as it'd attack almost anything in existence in short term. Same goes for Mercury- save that it's pretty damn toxic in addition to being an aggressive metal.
Re:Doesn't touch certain things... (Score:3, Informative)
Galium-indium or Galium-tin liquid alloys have density values around 6kg/L. Since galium makes the major portion of these alloys, a pint of the liquid metall will cost around $4000.
By looking at their pictures they will need loads of it (to go through the pipes and through the heat radiator) so the whole thing is going to be pretty dear.
Re:Mystery metal revealed: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mystery metal revealed: (Score:3, Informative)
It's called liquid metal embrittlement, and it's the reason you can't take mercury thermometers on aircraft. Liquid gets into cracks, attacks the microscopic area at the crack tip, and the crack gets longer and sharper (so less load is required to make the crack bigger) until the whole thing goes. One steel beam under load exposed to molten lead in a factory only lasted a few seconds before a spectacular failure.
If the liquid can't
That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Informative)
Liquid metal cooling is used in reactors because of the *extreme temperatures*, not just because it's more efficient. The metal (usually Sodium, but sometimes lead) is maintained in a molten state as it passes through the reactor and on back to the heat exchanger. Are they *really* saying that a CPU is going to pump enough heat to maintain a molten state inside the cooling device? If yes, that's kind of scary.
Maybe it's time to rethink the approach of driving up power usage to 300 watts just to get an extra 2 frames per second on Doom? Either that or we should start installing nuclear reactors in computers!
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Funny)
Ever used a P4 for rendering?
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:4, Insightful)
That's probably why. Can you imagine the product liability lawsuits when such systems begin to vent mercury vapor as they age (or get banged about at LAN parties)? May as well have a hardware-based random number generator built around an unshielded chunk of plutonium.
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:3, Insightful)
That'd be right... (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of a cooling system, the heat flux will be higher than with water or alcohol (heatpipe...). The specific heat's waaay lower, but the thermal conductivity (as in the rate the heat's absorbed or dissipated...) is much, much higher. So, if you have a decent convective flow via thermosiphon or by way of pumping, it becomes this very extended air-cooled heatsink.
You won't be overclocking with this stuff unless you couple it with something like Peltiers or Vapor-phase, but you CAN make a decent quiet PC with it.
Specific heat vs. heat capacity (Score:3, Informative)
In addition to the other (correct) points you make, the specific heat (in J/(g*K)) may be lower, but the heat capacity (in J/K) isn't. Since most of these systems are probably volume/area limited instead of mass limited, I'd consider heat capacity more relevant, and reveals an even greater advantage for metals. I'd use J/(g*L) or something like that if you want to use specific heat, that way you consider the higher density of metals.
Brilliant! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not very toxic. (Score:3, Informative)
Not very toxic at all. That is kind of THE POINT in replacing mercury in thermometers, after all.
From the MSDS [rgmd.com]
Inhalation: The extremely low vapor pressure of Galinstan makes absorption through inhalation negligible.
Ingestion: No adverse health effect has been observed or reported. Galinstan passes through the digestive system without effect.
Skin: Skin oils may be reduced through continuous contact.
Eyes: Dire
Re:Not very toxic. (Score:3, Interesting)
(Ever wondered what you use in your dishwasher? Or what some of the stuff in your garage does?)
"Not very toxic at all" is quite comfortable for me. Of course, I also want to know how it reacts in case of fire, if it destroys my floor if it ever leaks out, if it's environmentally friendly, etc.. But according to the MSDS I shouldn't need to worry about
Re:Not very toxic. (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the "safety" instructions are things like "wash your hands after handling", "don't pour this into your eye", etc. I suspect that isotonic Saline solution
No, you need contact... (Score:3, Informative)
Keep in mind, that most MHD pumps are at best 30% efficent, so you'll need a little more juice to move something like Galinstan. The only problem with using traditional pumping with something like that is that it wets every surface except things coated with Gallium Oxide and it alloys with most all metals to some small or large extent (You flatly do not want to expose Aluminum or
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Interesting)
Or some other weird alloy. You can buy "liquid metal" for fun at http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/the
But I still wonder what this has that water does not?
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:3, Informative)
It can put John Connor on Ice?
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Informative)
Galinstan conducts heat far better than water. Galinstan's conductivity is 16.5 W/(MK) vs. water's value of between .4 to .7.
Several posters have suggested gallium which melts at 40 C. Using pure gallium would be a disaster because when it freezes, it expands like water does. It'd rupture the plumbing inside your computer. Galinstan stays liquid down to -19 C. A spec sheet is available. [geratherm.com]
Galinstan has a couple of drawbacks. A, it's corrosive and B, it sticks to most surfaces unless the surface is properly prepared. That means your radiator, water block and all the tubing has to be internally coated before you pour Galinstan into your cooling rig.
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:2)
Reactors are Go (Score:2)
I remember hearing a few years ago that we will soon get to the point where the cores of the CPUs would be hotter than the interior of a nuclear reactor. So, that may just be a serious solution after all!
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:5, Informative)
Of course even when that becomes the case it doesn't justify the use of sodium or lead to cool them. Si starts to break down at 120 degrees C and the primary concern for CPU makers is to maintain temperatures well below this. Sealed water cooling systems will become widespread within the next couple of years but for now liquid metal is just a gimmick for the overclocking crowd.
Re:What about cesium (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, you want to replace mercury with a metal that reacts violently with oxygen and water vapor in an explosion and which reacts with water vapor to form the strongest base known. CsOH is caustic enough to go through glass and will go through metals. IIRC, the only safe way to store cesium is to keep it in a glass ampule under a vaccuum or an argon atmoshphere.
I would stick to the mercury, at least with mercury you can use EDTA or some other chelating agent to sequester it and counteract mercury poisoning.
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:3, Interesting)
Newest english-asskissing craze: Writing "Bismut" in german, because it looks so english and thus so scientific.
It's used in car engines, too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:3, Interesting)
If you force mercury over a copper block, that block will be dissolved in a few months.
Got some mercury? Drop a dime into it and watch what happens after a week or so.
Re:That's a little... extreme (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been 3 minutes, and I still don't have the pictures...
"The ever increasing demands put on cooling solutions for semiconductor devices have never been greater than today"
Hehe...
Since there's almost no actual substance in the ad, I'll hold off commenting on its feasability. Unless the've matched some melting point to
The Article (site is already slow...) (Score:5, Informative)
for laptops, desktops, servers, and graphics cards
The ever increasing demands put on cooling solutions for semiconductor devices have never been greater than today and there are no indications that these requirements will diminish in the future. With higher power dissipation due to higher speed processors, ever increasing leakage losses and extremely high heat flux densities due to hot spots on the chip, the demand for advanced cooling solutions continues to increase.
Until recently the demand for advanced cooling solutions was reserved for a small fraction of the ICs produced. Today these needs are becoming pervasive. New CPUs in almost every application are starting to require more than just a heat sink and a fan, and the need is not just with the CPU. In a modern portable computer or server there are several different heat sources that require advanced cooling. One can easily imagine a CPU, GPU, power supply, and other heat sources that need to be cooled.
nanoCoolers has developed a unique approach to cooling these high power heat sources. Cooling with liquid metals has been used for decades in the nuclear reactor industry, but never before have the systems been miniaturized and developed specifically for computer cooling. nanoCoolers has developed solutions to address the high heat source issues for portable computers, desktop computers, servers and other electronic applications. Within each of these categories are specialized situations that have additional needs, such as the elevated temperature requirements for ruggedized computers, or the overclocking requirements from gamers. nanoCoolers' advanced liquid metal cooling solutions address each of these concerns.
Processor Cooling and CPU Cooling for Portable Computing
Each application has issues with high heat flux densities and high power dissipation, but each also has their own unique issues that need to be addressed. nanoCoolers' solution for portable computers not only solves the power dissipation and high heat flux densities with the use of a highly thermally conductive liquid metal but also allows the system to be completely orientation independent. Since our solution is a completely filled and sealed unit, there are no gravitational effects on the thermal solution and therefore on the computer itself. Our electromagnetic pump, consisting of magnets and electrodes allows for extremely small pumps with a variety of profiles. Since the pump has no moving parts, it is inherently reliable. In the future, advanced cooling solutions will be required in portable computers for cooling CPUs, GPUs, other ICs, power supplies and even fuel cells. Our technology lets the system designer determine how many heat sources they would like to cool and at what remote location they would like to dissipate the heat. Another trend for portable computers is to make the computer thinner. nanoCoolers' heat exchangers can be made extremely thin to allow for these design challenges. The heat can be efficiently removed from the heat source and then transported to a remote location where it can be rejected to ambient air. Finally, one of the most important issues with a portable computer is the battery life of the unit. nanoCoolers' thermal solution is not only very power efficient, it could also be designed to vary based on the amount of cooling needed. If the system is idling, the current to the pump could be reduced or even shut off. However, if the CPU is running at 100%, the pump current could be increased for maximum cooling. These attributes allow for system designers to be able to design the very best portable solution available.
CPU Cooling and Graphics Card Cooling for Desktop Computing
Desktop computers have many of the same issues as all CPU driven devices; high power dissipation and high heat densities. Our desktop solution solves the most demanding thermal requirements. Desktop solutions might not be as concerned about power efficiencies,
Origin (Score:4, Informative)
Three in a row! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three in a row! (Score:2)
Even though I'm interested in the item listed in the topic, it's an advertisement so I
My next project (Score:2)
Re:My next project (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My next project (Score:5, Funny)
Silly, convection couldn't work because there is no real "up" in space. You know? Heat rises? I therefore propose the use of fans. Imagine how fast the fans could spin in the vacume of space!!! They would be much more effective "up there" than down here with all this inefficient "atmosphere" crap. The fans could also redundantly double for propulsion when needed.
Why has NASA not thought of these things? NASA really ought to be hiring real geniuses like many of the other gifted
Re:My next project (Score:4, Informative)
The background of space is aproximately 4 degrees kelvin. So running your computer at room temperature (~304 kelvin, lets make numbers easy). 300 to the fourth power is a big number. And we've been doing radiative heat transfer for a long time. In fact, on some missions (for example, Voyager) they had to install resistive heaters to keep the compters warm enough to keep them running because it was so cold.
IAAAE. (I Am An Aerospace Engineer).
-Philski-
Slashdot: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even products can be news.
But.... (Score:5, Funny)
Um, details? (Score:5, Interesting)
Although there was talk of "high tech this" and "required for the future" type crap, there really wasn't a whole lot of meat to the story.
Maybe I missed the link that actually describes what kind of metals they're using, how the pump actually works (it's magnets! doesn't count) and what types of temperatures they're able to achieve relative to other liquid cooling methods.
Could someone please fill in the other half of this submission, this time with less Sales pitch and more Info?
Re:Um, details? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, details? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, details? (Score:3, Informative)
Tx1000 ? (Score:2)
Geek Meeting (Score:2, Funny)
G2:Ha!! I use alcohol based cooling so that if I get a leak I do not get a short in the system
G3:your both losers.. I use Liquid Sodium.
Re:Geek Meeting (Score:2)
My both losers what?
Re:Geek Meeting (Score:3, Funny)
Sigh.
It's a fictional satirical conversation between two geeks, and yes they talk like that.
Double sigh.
Did you really come to a public forum expeting a spelling rodeo?
Bored with grass fields? (Score:5, Funny)
Nice, but be careful with it (Score:3, Funny)
Not even nuclear reactors (Score:5, Informative)
However, I very much doubt that sodium will be the metal of choice for CPU cooling, no matter how popular it is in submarines. The obvious candidates are mercury and gallium. Mercury is rapidly falling out of favor because it is so toxic and, if you spill it and it gets under the floorboards it is floor removal time. Gallium is a little expensive.
Re:Not even nuclear reactors (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not even nuclear reactors (Score:2)
How could anyone get bored!? (Score:5, Funny)
Bite your tongue! How in the world could anyone ever get bored with cooling CPUs with water? I've thrown dozens of water-cooled-CPU-themed parties in the last several years and my guests have never wanted for excitement!
Once there was this time at one of the parties that this one CPU got up to 68 degrees celcius. Way too hot! We put a custom water cooler job on that guy and got it down to 45 degrees celcius in no time. Good times.
How could you ever be bored!?
Sure, it's all well and good... (Score:2, Redundant)
Low-Temp Alloys (Score:2)
High geek factor, too. Where are the T2 references, though?
Three slashvertisements in a row (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy to Clean Up (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, if ever there is a leak, all you need to clean it up is a bit of Water!...
Aggies
Bismuth alloy (Score:2, Informative)
Bismuth 49%
Lead 18%
Tin 12%
Indium 21%
has a melting point of 58%C
it could be used safely and is widely available
no need for liquid sodium pity.
Re:Bismuth alloy (Score:2)
My water cooling setup keeps the CPU at around 55C. I don't see how this would be an improvement.
specific heat (Score:4, Interesting)
IIRC, the specific heat of water is around 4 while most metals are around 1. This means it takes 4x the amount of heat energy to raise water by 1 degree than to raise a similar metal by 1 degree.
therefore, what is the benefit of metal cooling?
Just because they used it to cool nuclear reactors, doesn't mean its good for computer cooling.
Re:specific heat (Score:4, Informative)
Correct, but that is by weight. With a CPU, you want as much heat-absorbing capacity on as little space as possible, so it makes more sense to calculate the heat capacity per unit volume, which is the heat capacity times the density. The density of most metals is between 3 and 10 times more than that of water, so there you have your factor 4 back. Plus the advantage of a much better heat conductivity.
Re:specific heat (Score:4, Informative)
Water vs. Metal -- Try Mineral Oil (Score:5, Interesting)
Gallium cooling (Score:4, Insightful)
Magnetic pumping of liquid metal is a standard practice. You run a current through the metal in the transverse direction, and put it in a DC magnetic field. This induces a force proportional to the cross product of the field and the current. No moving parts, and no seals to leak.
The whole concept is probably pointless, but quite possible.
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element) [wikipedia.org]
ian
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:3, Insightful)
The key for using liquid metal in this as I see it, is to move heat away quickly, rathe
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2, Informative)
In the early days of commercial radio these alloys were used as a conductive form to secure galena or other semiconductors for use as the detector in 'crystal' radio sets. Low melting point avoided damage to the mineral.
They are also used in making for many low temp(so as not to damage the mold) casting of patterns from a single rubber(latex) mold for use in making mold 'trees'.
I'm sure there are some /. readers who know of other uses fo
WRONG!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Do a google search on Galinstan or Geratherm.
You'll find you were wrong about the mercury.
What recycling? (Score:2)
Re:Too dangerous? (Score:2)
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:2)
Graphite is used as a nuclear reaction moderator :
Whilst the graphite moderator caught fire [stanford.edu] and other Western designs use water instead, it wasn't a coolant.
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:2)
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:3, Funny)
I hope you don't ever use polystyrene, after that Shuttle crash showed how dangerous it can be.
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:5, Informative)
Many American reactors do use pressurized water, not liquid sodium, for cooling. The primary (really "hot" in both senses) loop runs at several hundred degrees, but pressure keeps it from boiling. There's also the Boiling Water reactor design, which does indeed let the primary water boil and generate steam, which condenses in the heat exchanger and is returned as a liquid.
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:3, Informative)
Graphite was present in Chernobyl, but it was used as a moderator. The coolant was our good friend h2o.
http://www.chernobyl.info/ [chernobyl.info] has great info (The
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:2)
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:3, Interesting)
1 Graphite is not a liquid or a metal. It is a form of carbon. Typically uses for pencil lead.
2 Graphite is not used for cooling it is used as a neutron moderator. It slows neutrons so that they are more likely to be captured and cause an atom to fission.
3 Chernobyl was water cooled.
4. The Chernobyl did not show anything about liquid metal cooling. It did show that containment buildings should not be considered optional. Graphite moderated reactors have more than a few safety issues.
No
Re:Chernobyl at home? (Score:2)
Dammit, where's the -1 WRONG moderation? (Score:5, Informative)
There were a few bad things about this design:
1) If the reactor loses all of its coolant, it does not lose its moderator. Thus, losing coolant does not slow the reaction down. In fact, I believe that the Chernobyl reactor had a number of operating regimes where increases in temperature would increase the output power.
2) Graphite is very combustible. Highly flammable materials in an extremely high-temperature environment such as a nuclear reactor is a Bad Idea. Especially in a facility with no containment building whatsoever.
U.S. reactors are very different. Like Chernobyl, they are water-cooled, BUT they are also water-moderated. If they begin losing coolant, the reaction will begin to slow down. There are no highly combustible substances in the reactor core, and even if there were, U.S. reactors have very strong containment buildings so that if something goes horribly wrong, it will not likely ever escape containment.
Liquid-metal reactors have the disadvantage that their coolants are in some cases very reactive, but that's not much of a problem with a strong containment building, especially since some of the liquid-metal reactors are FAR more efficient as far as making use of their fuel and also produce waste that has a much shorter half-life than the waste from pressurized water reactors, making disposal much easier.
Re:liquid sodium (Score:5, Funny)
Re:liquid sodium (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe YOU don't want liquid sodium metal in your computer. I think it would be beyond cool, especially when the unit reaches end-of-life and it's disposal time [theodoregray.com].
Uhm... Pay attention here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:liquid sodium (Score:2)
Re:liquid sodium (Score:2)
Re:liquid sodium (Score:3, Informative)
The sodium binds with the -OH in water to produce NaOH, a powerfully corrosive base. This happens to releases a hell of a lot of heat. It also happens to release a hell of a lot of gaseous hydrogen (H2O minus OH leaves H). Hydrogen+heat, kaboom.
If you take a lump of solid sodium metal and toss it into a lake it will sink for a moment, reacting as described. In a split second it explodes throwning the chunk of metal back up into the
Re:liquid sodium (Score:3, Funny)
I'll just have to take this idea with a grain of salt
Re:liquid sodium (Score:3, Funny)
Congratulations.
Re:liquid sodium (Score:2)
the nuclear reactor quote is pointless.
Re:OK everyone (Score:5, Funny)
Put all your Terminator 2 jokes here, please.
Can't think of any at the moment... but I'll be back!