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Thread: Liquid metal reacts badly with aluminium

  1. #1
    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Liquid metal reacts badly with aluminium

    There's a thermal compound out there on the market called Liquid Metal, made by Coolloaboratory. The manufacturer has said that the product should only be used with copper heatsinks, and not aluminium ones. Why? Well if you use the stuff on an aluminium part, you'll soon find you're left with a lot less heatsink, as a member of french site Nokytech discovered.

    The pictures say it all, except perhaps what actually makes up Liquid Metal. Sufficient to say, perhaps best to stay away from it, especially if you have an aluminium heatsink.
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    Senior Member chrestomanci's Avatar
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    Mercury and Caustic soda will both do that to Aluminum, but seeing as how desctructive they can be to other PC components (not to mention people's heath) I can't think of any good reason why somone would put either substance in a heat transfer grease.

    What on earth have they put in liquid metal? Is the materals hazard data sheet avalable? (It should be according to UK legistation).

  3. #3
    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    I bought a copy of Popular Science a while back and they had an article on the effects of Mercury on Aluminium, they also explained the science behind it very well.

    I think by EU law they should be able to supply an MSDS and Dangerous goods documentation. If this contains mercury then they will need to pack it specially for air transport, no jiffy backs for this stuff.

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    I need a coffee jamena's Avatar
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    a quick google turned up a plausible direction to look in. No Mercury required...

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    Liquid Metal

    Probably a gallium/indium/tin eutectic alloy.

    The reaction is straight solubility - like salt dissolves in water, aluminium dissolves in the alloy while copper is relatively insoluble.

    Gallium itself melts at body temperatures so the alloy is made by dissolving tin/indium in it - which lowers the melting point further so it's liquid at room temperature. Aluminium seems to raise the melting point a bit so it recrystallises and goes a bit powdery.

    Lord knows what it will do with any lead in your motherboard solder - lead tend to be part of many low melting point mixtures too.

    Good toy though.

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    Lucca Der Tuv (LCD) mart_haj86's Avatar
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    it breaks my heart

    that poor zalman fan it breaks my heart to see it eaten alive... havent got a clue what could cause aluminium to be eaten like that.. you can guarentee i wont be buying any.. ill stick to arctic silver 5 ta...

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    i thought this stuff wasnt for heat transfer but sapphire were going to use it to cool there high end graphics cards in a sort of watercooling system on the card but without water and with an electromagnetic pump

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    For some reason the idea of having a lump of gallium to play with is really rather good O;-)

    For purely responsible reasons, of course.

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