How about using thermal putty like K5 PRO as guard to stop LM leak?

[AsusFanSK]

About a year ago I watched the K5 PRO video and I am using it instead of thermal pads since.

A couple of months ago I was experimenting with liquid metal on some cheap CPU and ofcourse it leaked all around as soon as I installed heat sink.

At that moment I though to cover surrounding area of CPU core with K5 PRO in order to use it as guard.

However I was not sure if that would really be effective long term so I decided to spread some LM on a layer of K5 PRO and see if it will go through it.

I had forgotten abou this but today I found this experiment and you can see result in photo. 

So it seems that LM not only did not go through K5 PRO but it even has a short of hydrophobic behaviour because as you can see all LM was collected in center in one drop.

So this tells me that it should indeed behave as a good guard to protect what ever is covered with K5 PRO from LM leak. 

When I have time I will do an actual testing on a CPU and publish results.

[Snarks Domain]

Long term you may want to use something like Nail polish, Conformal Coating, or Liquid Kapton Tape?

 

Alternatively, you may want to try Honeywell PTM7950. It does very well on CPU's and GPU's....even in laptops.

[Singularity82]

Thanks for sharing your suggestion! Last summer, I came across your post and decided to follow your advice by applying liquid metal (LM) on the GPU core and adding a layer of K5 PRO around it to prevent any potential LM leaks. Just yesterday, I removed the heatsink for cleaning, and to my relief, although there was some LM leakage, it didn't penetrate the K5 PRO layer. I didn't have to replace anything or repaste. Both the K5 and LM seemed intact, so I simply cleaned off the dust and reattached the heatsink. It's safe to say your suggestion really does work!